Forward Deployed Engineer, Shield AI
More information about location
Building AI aircraft pilots
Be an early applicant
Building AI aircraft pilots
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.
Role
Who you are
- 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
Desirable
- Experience in the defense aviation or robotics industry
- Experience building and running a small enterprise software applications/solutions engineering team
What the job involves
- The Forward Deployed Engineer will provide technical expertise and support to customers during the implementation and use of Shield AI enterprise software products
- This role involves working closely with customers to understand their requirements and ensuring successful product integration for AI & Autonomy development
- Become an expert user of the Hivemind Enterprise Autonomy Software Development Kit
- Develop AI & Autonomy applications using Hivemind for unmanned platforms across air/sea/land/space
- Deploy Hivemind AI infrastructure at customer sites
- Provide technical training to customers for their autonomy development efforts
- Assist customers in integrating Hivemind autonomy to their vehicles/platforms
- Help customers debug software/API integration issues
- Collaborate with the product and engineering teams to address customer feedback and improve products
- Develop and maintain technical documentation and training materials Assist the sales team in answering complex technical queries from customers
- Examples of Projects You will Work On:
- Autonomous teaming drones
- Teaming between helicopters and drones
- Autonomy on Robodogs
- AI on Fighter Jets… and more that we aren’t allowed to publicly share!
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Self-driving vehicles present enormous benefits for the transportation industry, with the potential to increase the safety and efficiency of cars, trucks, and commercial airlines. However, such technological innovation is less present within the military transportation sector, despite the benefits that AI piloting would produce for the operation of drones and aircraft.
Shield AI is developing Hivemind, an AI-driven pilot that can operate drones and aircraft autonomously, without needing GPS, communications, or pilots. In addition to navigation, the technology is also designed to facilitate indoor building clearance, integrated defense breaching, and has the ability to learn and autonomously execute aircraft missions.
Whilst similar AI-driven pilot software has begun to appear in Chinese military research programs, Shield AI's target is the US. By developing fully autonomous piloting integrations for any type of aircraft, the company aims to future-proof the US military without the need for bespoke aircraft design. It has generated massive amounts of funding to support continued scaling and R&D efforts.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 14 rounds)
Mar 2026
$1.5bn
SERIES G
Mar 2026
$500m
LATE VC
Total funding: $3.0bn
Company benefits
- Excellent Medical Coverage
- Mental Health Employee Assistance Program
- Paid Parental Leave
- Pet Insurance
- Flexible Work Hours
- Gym Discount (San Diego)
- Onsite Gym (DC)
- Free Parking
- Competitive Compensation
- 401K Services and Match
- Stock Benefits
Company HQ
Core-Columbia, San Diego, CA
Leadership
Ryan Tseng
(Co-Founder & President)Experience as CEO, CTO and Founder of WiPower from 2006 to 2010. Technical Lead for Wireless Power Program for Qualcomm from 2010 to 2013.
Brandon Tseng
(Co-Founder & President)Naval Officer for the US Navy from 2009 to 2015.
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