Role details
Job description
Job Description:
Shield AI is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to help drive the design, development, and integration of a safety critical Run-Time Assurance (RTA) product. The Hivemind Foundations team is responsible for a suite of core products and capabilities that brings resilient autonomy and intelligence to aircraft and other platforms operating in complex environments. The RTA product that the Foundations team develops is a real-time safety capability that helps keep autonomy safe, predictable, and effective at the edge.
As a member of the Foundations team, you will be responsible for driving C++ software development against rigorous coding standards and requirements, integration of reusable safety capabilities into production systems, defining clean interfaces and tests, and turn safety-critical designs into reliable software that can fly, including support for X-BAT, Shield AI's flagship Group 5 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) UAV.
What you'll do
- Drive architecture, development, integration and testing of an extensible, configurable Run-Time Assurance (RTA) module that ensures safe operation of autonomous systems in diverse, adversarial conditions.
- Work closely with other engineers in Foundations to design and integrate with the low-assurance mission-autonomy software and high-assurance middleware.
- Specialize, integrate and test the RTA capability on a diverse set of platforms in various conditions to ensure robust fail-safe behavior.
- Drive principled software development practices across Foundations including but not limited to code analysis, audit trail, principled review processes.
- Collaborate with the team to generate artifacts that enable certifiability of Foundations software, including but not limited to static & dynamic analysis reports, software documentation, architecture decision records (ADRs), interface control diagrams (ICDs), system models.
- Mentor and guide Foundations developers on practices of safe software development to enhance software quality and assurance.
Required qualifications
- Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 9 years with a Master’s degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
- Demonstrated excellence in designing and developing C++ based safety-critical software systems with Real-Time guarantees.
- Experience working as a mentor to other engineers in a role driving software best practices to enhance software quality.
- Experience integrating software on real-world physical systems and driving up performance and reliability.
- Deep expertise in C++ software architecture design patterns and their practical implementation.
- Strong knowledge of software assurance certifications such as DO-178C and MIL-HDBK-516.
- Strong Git and Linux development skills, along with modern software development practices (e.g., CI/CD, test-driven development).
- A track record of technical leadership, with the ability to set and maintain high standards, guide teams through complex technical challenges, and collaborate effectively.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience developing against strict C++ coding standards (e.g., MISRA C++, JSF AV C++)
- Hands-on experience with airworthiness certifications such as MIL-HDBK-516, DO-178C.
- Experience taking a solution through a certification process and achieving a certification.
Role context
This Staff Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788) role at Shield AI sits in the engineering track within defense and autonomy. The position is tied to San Diego, California, United States and is posted within the last day, which signals active hiring intent rather than archived demand. Compensation is not disclosed in the source listing, so candidates should verify range details directly with the employer. Combined with the live company and role links on this page, this listing gives candidates a direct path to compare equivalent openings by employer, market, and role focus.
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Location
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San Diego, California, United States
Location
San Diego, California, United States
Approximate role location based on the employer listing.
San Diego, California, United States
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