Staff Applications Engineer, Autonomy

Founded in 2015, 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 and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. 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. 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