Staff Engineer, Platform/SRE (R4174)
Shield AI
Washington, DC, USA
USD 150,711-226,067 / year + Equity
Posted on Nov 25, 2025
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With nine offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Shield AI has developed an IT Platform for building, optimizing, evaluating, and analyzing autonomy solutions. The technology has drawn significant interest from industry. We are currently working with customers to investigate modern warfighting problems and develop/ deliver solutions within isolated/ specialized environments.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- You will work as a Platform Engineer as defined by Team Topologies - or Site Reliability Engineer as defined by Google Site Reliability Engineering.
- Requires designing, building and maintaining reliable, scalable, and secure infrastructure platforms. Your actions will empower development teams with self-service infrastructure and ensure production systems are stable, performant, and observable.
- Use Extreme Programming and GitOps to maintain multiple secure bare metal Kubernetes clusters as code
- Administer air gapped Kubernetes clusters as code
- Manage infrastructure through merge requests/ pull requests
- Manage Kubernetes through merge requests/ pull requests
- Automate/ resolve compliance requirements as code
- Coordinate with autonomy teams to build and meet requirements
- Solve challenging and important problems
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Typically requires a minimum of 7 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or 4 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
- 3+ years demonstrated experience with cloud computing solutions and architecture, with a focus on Kubernetes and container orchestration
- Experience working in an Extreme Programming environment
- Familiarity with BDD, TDD, DDD, Trunking
- Experience with supporting C++ or Python-based applications
- Solid understanding of Linux/Unix-based systems (specifically in networking and experience in designing and implementing networked applications)
- BS/MS in Computer Science, similar degree, or equivalent practical experience
- Demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself
- and others to high standards, and being kind to others
- Experience debugging/troubleshooting deployed, distributed problems
- Experience developing and deploying automation tooling (ex. Ansible, Chef, Puppet)
- Must be available to support onsite in Crystal City and surrounding NOVA area
- The ability to obtain and maintain a US Security Clearance. US citizenship is required as only US citizens are eligible for a security clearance
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience with Authentication and Authorization frameworks and protocols
- DoD 8570 IAT Level 2 Compliance
- Experience supporting Golang-based applications
#LI-LD1
#LD
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.
150711 - 226067 USD a year