Staff Applications Engineer, Autonomy

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.

Our Staff Applications Engineers are highly technical, customer-facing leaders who own and drive complex customer engagements from end to end. In this role, you will become a deep expert in the Hivemind Enterprise product and act as a trusted technical partner to customers, often owning one or multiple accounts at a time. This is a travel-heavy role, with frequent trips, including international travel and multi-week on-site engagements.

We are primarily hiring at the Staff level, but we will also consider exceptional candidates at higher levels, including Senior Staff and Principal, who can take on broader ownership and drive impact across multiple customers and deployments.

In this role, you will lead customer engagements, shape technical solutions, and ensure successful integration of our AI and autonomy products in real-world environments. You will work closely with internal engineering teams, influence product direction based on what you see in the field, and help scale best practices across deployments.

You Should Apply If:

• You are excited about a travel-heavy role and enjoy being on-site with customers, including international and multi-week engagements

• You have experience owning complex technical engagements and can operate with a high degree of autonomy and accountability

• You are comfortable leading deployments, guiding customers, and influencing both technical decisions and product direction

• You enjoy problem solving, building relationships, and working at the intersection of engineering and real-world deployment

• You are passionate about autonomy, robotics, or aerospace

You Should Not Apply If:

• You prefer minimal travel or want to work primarily from one location

• You want to do 100% R&D and do not enjoy customer interactions

• You have never programmed in C, C++, or Rust

What you'll do:

Become an expert user of the Hivemind enterprise software stack.

Provide technical support and training to customers.

Develop AI & Autonomy applications using the Shield AI enterprise software development kit.

Assist the sales team in pre-sales activities, e.g., demos.

Assist in post-sales deployment and integration of Shield AI enterprise software products.

Develop and maintain technical documentation and training materials.

Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues.

Help customers debug software/API integration issues.

Collaborate with the engineering team to address customer feedback and improve products.

Conduct minimal travel (~10%) to other Shield AI sites for demos, team offsites, etc.

Required qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.

7+ years of experience of industry experience

3+ years of experience in an integration/applications engineering role

3+ years of experience working in a startup environment.

Strong technical background in software engineering.

Strong proficiency in writing modern C++ code.

Intermediate proficiency in writing Python code.

Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.

Strong communication and interpersonal skills.

Preferred qualifications:

Experience in the defense aviation or robotics industry.

Experience building and running a small enterprise software applications/solutions engineering team.

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.