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 www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Job Description:
Shield AI is seeking a Senior Staff C++ Software Engineer, Edge Systems to define and build the software foundations that power autonomous systems operating in demanding real-world environments.
This role sits within the Edge Systems team, where software meets hardware. You will solve complex engineering problems spanning Linux edge computing, imaging, sensor integration, mission systems, and autonomy, building software that runs on real hardware in operational environments rather than laboratory prototypes.
As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across the Edge Systems domain. You will shape architecture and long-term technical direction across multiple teams and products, lead the resolution of complex cross-cutting problems, and establish engineering approaches that improve the effectiveness of the broader organisation.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will continue to design, write, review, test, and debug production software, while focusing your individual contribution on the organisation’s highest-risk and highest-leverage technical problems.
You will develop modern C++ software for Linux-based edge compute platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson-class and ARM64 systems. Your work will span sensor integration, imaging pipelines, calibration, diagnostics, deployment, developer tooling, and mission-critical applications that demand high performance, reliability, and maintainability.
This is an application and systems software role focused on Linux-based edge computing, rather than bare-metal firmware or microcontroller development.
No two weeks look the same. One day you might be optimising image-processing pipelines on embedded GPUs. The next you could be defining architecture for future autonomous platforms, leading the integration of new sensors, or collaborating with AI researchers to bring new capabilities into production.
You will work alongside highly capable systems, hardware, autonomy, AI, product, and test engineers who enjoy solving difficult problems together. We believe our strongest technical leaders remain hands-on, and we expect our Senior Staff Engineers to continue writing software while multiplying the effectiveness of the engineers around them.
What you'll do:
Technical Leadership
Own and evolve the technical direction of significant edge software capabilities spanning edge compute, imaging, sensor integration, and mission systems.
Define architecture and technical strategy across multiple projects, products, and engineering teams.
Lead the resolution of complex, ambiguous, or cross-cutting technical problems where ownership spans organisational boundaries.
Establish reusable platform capabilities, interfaces, standards, and engineering practices adopted by multiple teams.
Provide technical leadership for major design decisions, including their trade-offs, risks, migration strategies, and long-term consequences.
Identify systemic technical risks and drive coordinated action before they materially affect delivery or product reliability.
Mentor senior engineers and develop other technical leaders, increasing the capability and autonomy of the wider organisation.
Partner with engineering, systems, autonomy, AI, product, and program leadership to translate business and product direction into sustainable technical roadmaps.
Balance long-term platform investment, technical debt, operational risk, and near-term product delivery.
Communicate complex technical decisions, strategy, and risks clearly to both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders.
Software Engineering
Design, develop, test, and maintain production C++ software for edge systems, imaging systems, mission applications, developer tooling, diagnostics, and automated testing.
Build user-space Linux applications for NVIDIA Jetson, ARM64, and other edge compute platforms connected to cameras, sensors, and mission systems.
Integrate RGB, NIR, and thermal cameras alongside GPS, IMU, and other sensors using operating system APIs, middleware, vendor SDKs, and hardware-facing interfaces.
Develop calibration, synchronisation, data capture, observability, diagnostics, inspection, and configuration tools for complex sensor systems.
Optimise software for latency, throughput, reliability, power utilisation, and thermal performance on constrained edge compute platforms.
Debug challenging issues spanning application software, Linux, networking, hardware interfaces, timing, deployment, and system integration.
Own technical outcomes for complex, cross-team initiatives from ambiguous problem framing through architecture, implementation, integration, verification, deployment, and sustained operation.
Collaborate across systems, hardware, AI, autonomy, product, and test teams to deliver integrated capability.
Required qualifications:
Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
Extensive industry experience developing modern C++ software for Linux.
Demonstrated experience developing user-space applications that interface with cameras, sensors, networking, GPUs, storage, or other hardware through operating system APIs, middleware, or vendor SDKs.
Deep practical experience developing, profiling, and debugging software on Linux.
Experience deploying complex C++ software to Linux-based edge compute platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson or comparable ARM64 systems.
Strong software engineering fundamentals, including concurrency, interface design, memory management, data structures, algorithms, testing, and version control.
Proven ability to diagnose complex issues across software, Linux, networking, timing, hardware integration, and deployment boundaries.
Experience owning complex technical work from incomplete requirements through design, implementation, integration, verification, deployment, and support.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills across multidisciplinary engineering teams.
Successful Senior Staff Engineer candidates will demonstrate:
A sustained record of defining architecture for large, complex, or mission-critical software systems.
Demonstrated technical influence across multiple teams, products, or engineering disciplines.
Leadership of complex initiatives where success depended on alignment across organisational boundaries.
Proven technical leadership through influence, sound judgement, and credibility rather than organisational authority.
Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing other technical leaders.
Ownership of long-term technical strategy alongside hands-on engineering and product delivery.
Evidence of establishing platforms, standards, interfaces, or engineering practices adopted beyond their immediate team.
Strong judgement when balancing performance, reliability, maintainability, scalability, delivery, and operational risk.
The ability to communicate technical strategy, decisions, and risks to senior engineering, product, and business stakeholders.
Preferred qualifications:
We do not expect candidates to have all of the following. Experience in any of these areas will help you stand out.
Runtime-critical, multi-threaded, or performance-sensitive C++ software.
High-throughput imaging or sensor-processing pipelines, including camera integration, ISP tuning, GStreamer, FFmpeg, OpenCV, or similar technologies.
Hardware-accelerated processing on edge compute platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson, CUDA, GPU compute, embedded AI accelerators, or accelerated video processing.
Integration of RGB, NIR, and thermal cameras, GPS, IMU, GPUs, or comparable peripheral hardware.
Robotics, aerospace, defence, autonomy, unmanned systems, automotive, or other mission-critical domains.
Systems architecture, interface design, software decomposition, reliability, maintainability, and testability.
Low-level Linux, vendor SDKs, driver-adjacent debugging, NixOS, edge AI inference, containerisation, or application deployment tooling.
Automated testing, simulation, software-in-the-loop, or hardware-in-the-loop environments.
#LE
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.
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, colour, 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.
