Manager, Software Engineering (R5966)

San Diego, California DRONES Full-time $170k to $310k Posted Sep 9, 2026
Apply on Shield AI (opens in a new tab) Sourced via jobs.lever.co · Posted 2026-09-09

About this role

Shield AI is hiring a Manager, Software Engineering (R5966), full-time, on-site in San Diego, California, in the DRONES sector.

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:

Hivemind is looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Shared Services Engineering team.

The Shared Services team is a product-oriented, full-stack engineering team that builds and operates common services, SDKs, APIs, and customer-facing applications connecting Shield’s products. These capabilities reduce duplicated engineering and help create a consistent Shield experience across product types.

You will lead the team as it identifies shared needs, establishes ownership, and delivers reliable, secure, and well-supported solutions. You will treat the team’s capabilities as products, maintaining a roadmap informed by external customers and internal engineering teams.

This is a technical, hands-on management role. You will guide architecture and delivery, remain engaged in complex engineering decisions, and build a team that owns its systems from design through production operation.

What you'll do:

  • Build and lead the Shared Services Engineering team, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development
  • Define and execute the team’s roadmap, balancing customer needs, cross-product priorities, operational health, and long-term technical investment
  • Partner with product and engineering teams to identify shared capabilities, establish ownership and integration boundaries, and guide initiatives including shared authentication, telemetry integrations, the Customer Support Portal, and future public telemetry APIs
  • Lead the architecture, delivery, and operation of shared services, SDKs, APIs, and customer-facing systems
  • Establish secure, reliable, documented, and versioned interfaces for internal engineering teams and external customers
  • Communicate plans, progress, risks, and tradeoffs across engineering, product, and organizational leadership

Required qualifications:

  • 7+ years of software engineering experience, including experience managing engineers responsible for production software
  • Demonstrated technical judgment in the design and operation of full-stack applications, backend services, APIs, or distributed systems
  • Strategic systems thinking and the ability to turn recurring needs across products into coherent, reusable capabilities
  • Track record of setting technical direction, making thoughtful tradeoffs, and executing across immediate and long-term priorities
  • Effective cross-functional leadership, with the ability to build alignment and trusted partnerships across engineering, product, and organizational stakeholders

Preferred qualifications:

  • Track record of leading teams that build shared services and customer-facing applications from scratch and own them through production operation
  • Depth in one or more relevant domains, such as identity and authentication, public APIs and SDKs, or OpenTelemetry and high-volume telemetry data
  • Experience establishing a new engineering capability, consolidating fragmented ownership, or driving adoption across multiple product teams
  • Experience building and operating secure, reliable software in regulated or compliance-driven environments
#LI-DM2 #LD

Description from Shield AI's official posting. Always confirm details on the company careers page.

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About Shield AI

Shield AI

Company in the mobility sector tracked nightly on the Mobility Jobs board.

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Larry Sherwood Jr.

About Larry Sherwood Jr.

Talent Acquisition Leader specializing in mobility, EV, and frontier tech. 1,000+ hires across roles ranging from production technicians to VPs, including 48 hires for the AFEELA U.S. launch at Sony Honda Mobility (98% offer acceptance, $1.5M+ agency savings). SHRM-CP certified. Build recruiting functions from scratch, no agencies.

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Curated by Larry Sherwood Jr. on the free Mobility Jobs board. Pulled nightly from company applicant tracking systems. Apply directly on the source link above to be considered.