Autonomy & Perception Integration Engineer - Flight Test (R5441)

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, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. 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. Job Description: This role is the team's primary interface between perception software and the flight test enterprise. You will work alongside autonomy/perception software developers, flight test engineers, and platform integration teams to mature our capabilities from algorithm to flight-verified system. The ideal candidate brings hands-on experience deploying and testing autonomy or perception software on edge hardware, a strong foundation in one or more core perception disciplines (detection, tracking, SLAM, or navigation), and a bias toward field execution over theoretical analysis.

What you'll do:: Integrate perception and state-estimation software with EO/IR cameras, IMU/GNSS/PNT sensors, embedded compute, and target or surrogate platforms. Lead the practical fly-fix-fly loop: prepare software and hardware, verify deployment/configuration, support execution, analyze the data, and drive the next corrective action with the responsible owners. Establish and improve calibration, timing, configuration, data-capture, metadata, and replay practices; define the measurable test objectives and acceptance criteria that make the resulting data usable. Investigate anomalous behavior using logs, recorded data, configuration, and focused source review; partner with software developers on targeted fixes and regression coverage. Support sensor and edge-compute trade studies, bring-up, and operational readiness; drive day-to-day technical triage while escalating safety, airworthiness, and architecture decisions appropriately. Required qualifications:: Hands-on experience integrating and troubleshooting sensor-driven robotics or autonomy systems on physical hardware, including camera, IMU, GNSS/PNT, video, or comparable sensors. Experience with calibration, timestamping, configuration, data quality, or a comparable sensor-integration discipline. Experience defining and executing measurable test objectives, design-of-experiments activities, operational test procedures, or equivalent verification plans. Proficiency in Python/Matlab for analysis, visualization, and investigation of recorded test data. Comfort reading C++ and working with embedded Linux or edge-compute deployments to support focused debugging and integration work. Demonstrated ability to work across hardware, software, test, and operational stakeholders; working knowledge of at least one core perception area such as navigation, tracking, detection, navigation, SLAM, or sensor fusion. Preferred qualifications:: Direct experience with camera intrinsics/extrinsics, camera-to-IMU calibration, time alig