Principal Engineer, Software (R5285)

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: The Special Projects team at Shield AI is an elite force within the office of the CTO. It consists of a group of very senior (L5-L8) and highly experienced software engineering experts from diverse fields (aerospace, robotics, cloud infrastructure, game development, interactive media design, ...). The charter of this group is to steer technology development towards strategic alignment with the CTO’s vision, through tactical insertion into teams and technologies across the organization. Individuals within this team make direct and at times forward-sprinting contributions to all three pillars of Hivemind, Shield AI’s software ecosystem for developing and deploying resilient intelligent teaming for aircrafts. Hivemind consists of four products: EdgeOS (C++ based high-performance middleware for autonomy development), Pilot (autonomy for the edge built atop EdgeOS; a models-based, modular and open architecture C++ codebase), Forge (Shield AI's AI Factory for the design, development, and testing of Hivemind Edge systems; a service-oriented architecture leveraged through an SDK, CLI, and web portal; a Go, Python, Typescript codebase), Commander (Software and hardware to support rich human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop interactions with the Hivemind; a C++-based back-end for interaction with Pilot; and a web-application UI for mission planning, command and control by operators implemented in a Typescript/React codebase). The Special Projec

What you'll do:: Design and prototype generative AI experience focused on accelerating autonomy development Work closely with members of the Office of the CTO to crystallize the vision of the Hivemind product and its documentation Lead the user experience design of Hivemind Generative AI Work closely with the technical leads of Hivemind Commander (mission planning, command and control, air-ground communications) and Hivemind Design (configurations, test and evaluation, rehearsal, analysis) to enhance the user experience of their products Conduct user research to understand user personae and their needs Investigate competing products and their user experiences, synthesize findings to present to engineering and product leadership Required qualifications:: 15+ years experience developing large, production quality software systems. Excellent grasp of software development and coding principles with high productivity in a mainstream language (e.g. Typescript, C++, Go, Python, Rust, etc.). Strong knowledge of modern software engineering best practices; Experience with Git and code management tools; Good software hygiene regarding code documentation, unit testing, bug tracking. 5+ years of experience with React/Node/Typescript/Javascript development. 5+ years of experience with Web applications development ("Front-End" or "Full-stack"). Deep understanding full-stack web development (Document-Object Model (DOM), browser APIs, standards, semantics, Websockets, HTTP Streaming and Server-Sent Events (SSE), Client and UI state management; best practises and strategies, as they apply to React-based rendering, Advanced SPA routing, URL-based state persistence,sharing mechanisms, Seamless content loading states and progressive rendering techniques.) Multi-modal input handling (text, files, images, audio). Experience with client-side LLM Context Management Fluid intelligence that allows one to operate effectively in sometimes ambiguous conditions, while finding opportunities to driv