Principal Autonomy Architect (R4375)
Shield AI
IT
San Diego, CA, USA
USD 13k-20k / year + Equity
Posted on Jan 21, 2026
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 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:
As an Autonomy Architect within the Hivemind Pilot team, you will lead the development of the Pilot stack, Shield AI’s edge autonomy offering. This is a pivotal technical role that blends architectural ownership with hands-on involvement in methodology development and direction setting. Your work will directly shape how autonomy software is developed, deployed, and operated across a range of systems—from aircraft to maritime and ground vehicles. You will partner closely with the Pilot Director and cross-functional leadership to define and execute the vision for Pilot: an extensible, developer-focused, autonomy SDK that enables solving the various problem areas typical to edge autonomy ranging from state-estimation to task-planning. You’ll be accountable for technical correctness, run-time sophistication, and system reliability required for mission-critical applications.
What you'll do:
- Define and develop robust methodologies for some of the core challenges pertaining to large-scale teaming in contested environments including but not limited to collaborative decision making, path-planning, object tracking, state estimation and intelligent multi-agent autonomy solutions.
- Collaborate with a strong team of autonomy engineers to take concepts all the way through production ensuring robust, resilient implementations that operate with a high level of reliability
- Collaborate with Pilot Director to shape the roadmap for Pilot to accelerate value delivery to customers and sophistication of the stack.
- Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to inform their roadmaps and influence capability development with an eye toward long-term vision
- Collaborate with other architects to ensure seamless integration of the Pilot stack with other elements of Hivemind SDK for a consistent customer experience.
Required qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in the AI & autonomy domain
- Deep expertise and experience in various areas of autonomy including discrete planning for task assignment / scheduling, path-planning (sampling-based, graph-based), next-best-view planning, distributed state-estimation, collaborative object tracking, and active perception
- Experience deploying complex autonomy software to relevant real-world platforms with demonstrable results
- Experience working with a large team of engineers as a technical mentor / guide with the ability to enhance rigor and correctness in methodologies across the stack
- Experience in forming the long-term vision and strategy for the technology stack in support of product needs bridging the gap between feasibility and rapid evolution
- Strong experience with software development using C++.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience in the defense and aerospace domain
- Experience with assured processes toward software certification (DO-178C).
- Experience deploying cutting edge technology to large (Group 4/5) aircraft
- Familiarity with CI/CD and software design principles
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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.
13000 - 20000 USD