Staff Engineer, Autonomy Capabilities – Maritime (R5325)

The role

You will lead technical delivery of autonomy capabilities for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and cooperating UAVs, focused on the maritime portfolio. You will shape customer requirements, define technical approaches for the team and drive execution from R&D through integration on real platforms.

What you will do

• Automate USV and/or UUV maneuvering through advanced motion planning and safety constraints such as keep-out volumes, vehicles and depth limits.
• Develop passive and active localization and tracking, including fusion modalities, sensor requirements and observability-aware maneuvering.
• Keep vehicle safety central to autonomy: run-time assurance, COLREGS adherence and operator trust.
• Develop distributed optimization and task allocation for heterogeneous multi-agent teaming.
• Write high-performance, well-tested software modules with clear interfaces, ready for mid-to-high TRL insertion.
• Collaborate with perception, planning, simulation, hardware and operational test teams to integrate autonomy on real platforms.
• Deploy autonomy to real surface vehicles, support integration and demonstration events, and analyze mission logs.
• Contribute to autonomy roadmaps by researching and prototyping new algorithms and identifying tactical capability gaps.
• Lead technical delivery of complex autonomy capabilities and help customers shape requirements.
• Travel around 25% of the year to office locations, customer sites and flight integration events.

Required qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a similar degree, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically a minimum of 7 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years with a Master's degree; or 4 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python, and familiarity with real-time operating systems (RTOS).
• Significant background in robotics technologies related to motion planning, behavior modeling, decision-making or autonomous system design.
• Significant experience with unmanned system technologies and accompanying algorithms (ideally in the space domain).
• Experience with simulation tools and environments such as AFSIM or NGTS for testing and validation.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to troubleshoot and optimize system performance.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Nice to have

• Experience in multiple aerospace domains (air, land, sea, space).
• Experience across methodologies from classical control through optimization and applied ML/RL.
• Background in collaborative behaviors and swarm robotics.
• Familiarity with domain-relevant DoD or government programs.
• Hands-on experience supporting integration events, customer demos and/or live exercises.

Benefits

• Bonus.
• Benefits package (full-time regular employees).
• Equity (full-time regular employees).
• Temporary benefits package, applicable after 60 days of employment (temporary employees).

Before you apply

• Offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance is required.
• Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits.

About the company

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company that builds intelligent systems to protect service members and civilians. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation technologies.