Senior Staff Autonomy Engineer, Planning (R2879)

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent, autonomous systems. Its products include Hivemind Enterprise—EdgeOS, Pilot, Commander, and Forge—as well as V-BAT and Sentient Vision Systems (wide-area motion imaging software). With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide.  For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X and Instagram.    

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company whose mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. In pursuit of this mission, Shield AI is building the world’s best AI pilot. Its AI pilot, Hivemind, has flown a fighter jet (F-16), a vertical takeoff and landing drone (V-BAT), and a quadcopter (Nova). The company has offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington DC and abroad. Shield AI’s products and people are currently in the field actively supporting operations with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. allies.  

The Task Planning team is part of the Pilot/Autonomy team for Hivemind Enterprise. The team is an agile group of engineers focused on researching and developing state-of-the-art algorithms that drive intelligent and confidence-inspiring flight behaviors while accounting for an uncertain and dynamic world. As a member of the team, you will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, task, and motion planning. You will architect and write high-quality software for core systems, set standards for software engineering, refine technical requirements, drive strategic technical improvements, and mentor other engineers. 

What you'll do:

• Be the technical subject matter expert for task planning (planning, scheduling, allocation for multi-agent teams of autonomous systems)
• Research, design, and implement state of the art algorithms for task planning in an extensible autonomy framework
• Develop core systems that must be portable and scalable across different UAS platforms and compute architectures 
• Develop software for a enterprise SDK for autonomy development
• Work with our engineers, program managers, and product managers to define a technical roadmap for future autonomy solutions

Projects you might work on:

• A Multi Agent Executive Manager for heterogeneous teams, which allocates members of flight wings to real-time emergent tasks. 
• State of the art assignment, planning, or scheduling algorithms to vastly reduce operator overhead or operate in denied environments autonomously. 
• NATO system interoperability and command chains for our autonomous vehicles 
• End to end simulation and analysis for software- and hardware-in-the-loop testing and continuous integration.  

Required qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 12 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 9 years and a Master’s degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Experience with task planning/scheduling and multi-agent collaborative autonomy
• Drive technical initiatives and architectural decisions that impact multiple teams and shape the overall engineering organization
• Proficient with C++ 11 or newer in a production environment 
• Experience in a collaborative development environment, focused on continuous integration/delivery & test-driven development 
• Strong knowledge of modern software engineering best practices 
• Demonstrated record of working hard, strong communication skills, being a trustworthy teammate, and being kind to others 
• Strong organizational skills 

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Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.