Staff Engineer Software GCS C++
Shield AI is a U.S. defense-technology company developing mission-autonomy software and autonomous aircraft for military and allied operations.
Funding history
Investors
About Shield AI
Founded in 2015, Shield AI builds Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft for operations in contested, GPS- and communications-denied environments. Its current site also presents Aechelon synthetic-reality simulation and Vision Systems detection and tracking products.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will design and develop responsive ground-control and command-and-control applications for mission planning, telemetry, video, and post-mission debriefing. You will lead technical decisions, define interfaces, mentor engineers, prepare mission-ready stations, troubleshoot live systems at test sites, and improve deployment and testing automation.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
- At least 7 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree, 6 years with a master’s degree, or 4 years with a PhD
- C++ proficiency for complex, multithreaded, or latency-sensitive desktop applications
- Experience building responsive user interfaces with Qt/QML or similar frameworks
- Experience customizing or extending QGroundControl or similar ground-station software
- Full-stack or backend development experience in C/C++, Python, TypeScript, or Go
- Knowledge of distributed systems, UDP/TCP, binary protocols, messaging, IPC middleware, serialization, and IDL tooling
- Experience using AI-assisted development tools
- Experience delivering major software capabilities from architecture through field delivery
- Experience mentoring engineers
- Experience authoring interface contracts, schemas, or ICDs
- Debugging and profiling skills for memory, UI responsiveness, and network latency
- Ability to obtain a Secret clearance
Responsibilities
- Develop and optimize ground-control and command-and-control software
- Customize QGroundControl and Qt/C++ frameworks for vehicle protocols and multi-agent operations
- Lead technical direction, architecture, and decision-making for major features
- Define and negotiate APIs, interface control documents, and interface contracts
- Mentor engineers and onboard senior hires
- Drive UI/UX design reviews, prototyping, documentation, and testing standards
- Build, configure, and validate mission-ready ground stations
- Travel to test sites and support live mission operations
- Diagnose hardware and software integration issues across GCS/C2 stacks
- Build telemetry analysis and post-mission debrief tools
- Improve deployment pipelines, reliability, and simulation-based operator testing
- Ensure integration with command-and-control standards
- Interview and onboard engineers
Benefits
- Bonus
- Equity