Autonomy & Perception Software Engineer (R5911)

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit [](https://shield.ai/). Follow Shield AI on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai), [X](https://x.com/shieldaitech), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/shield_ai), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@Shield_AI). ### Job Description: Help build perception software that works beyond the lab. Shield AI’s Perception team builds software that helps autonomous aircraft and vehicles understand their surroundings and make decisions in the real world. We’re looking for an experienced engineer who enjoys solving difficult perception problems and turning those solutions into reliable autonomy capabilities. You’ll bring depth in an area such as object tracking, classical/ML-based detection, computer vision, optimal state estimation, or sensor fusion. Working alongside autonomy, simulation, platform, and test engineers, you’ll take capabilities from an initial idea through deployment in the Hivemind product. ### What you'll do: - Develop perception algorithms and production software in modern C++. - Own features from design and implementation through integration, testing, and delivery. - Investigate system behavior using sensor data, simulation, logs, and focused experiments. - Collaborate across teams to turn research and customer-driven work into reusable product capabilities. - Contribute to technical direction, review designs and code, and mentor other engineers. ### Required qualifications: - Experience delivering production C++ software for perception, robotics, autonomy, or a related technical field. - Strong technical depth in at least one relevant area: detection, tracking, computer vision, image processing, estimation (e.g. Kalman Filtering), or sensor fusion. - An ability to debug complex systems and build software that others can understand, test, and maintain. - Comfort using Python or similar tools for experimentation and data analysis. - Sound technical judgment and a collaborative approach to solving problems. ### Preferred qualifications: - Experience with - real sensors (EO/IR, Radar, LiDAR, IMU) - embedded or GPU deployment - resource-constrained compute environments This role can be based in San Diego, San Mateo, Washington, DC, or Orlando, with a hybrid schedule of three days per week in the office.