Senior Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788)

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:

Shield AI is seeking an engineer to help design, develop, and integrate a safety critical Run-Time Assurance (RTA) product. The Hivemind Foundations team is responsible for a suite of core products and capabilities that brings resilient autonomy and intelligence to aircraft and other platforms operating in complex environments. The RTA product that the Foundations team develops is a real-time safety capability that helps keep autonomy safe, predictable, and effective at the edge.

As a member of the Foundations team, you will be responsible for C++ software development, integration of reusable safety capabilities into production systems, defining clean interfaces and tests, and turn safety-critical designs into reliable software that can fly, including support for X-BAT, Shield AI's flagship Group 5 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) UAV.

What you'll do:

• Develop, integrate, and test configurable Run-Time Assurance (RTA) components that monitor autonomy behavior and support safe operation across representative platforms and scenarios.
• Adapt reusable C++ safety capabilities into production runtime components, including interface integration, configuration wiring, and unit, component, and integration tests.
• Implement real-time C++ code at the boundary between mission autonomy, high-assurance middleware, and flight-control interfaces.
• Integrate safety-critical software with aircraft hardware for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and flight-test campaigns, scaling from single-aircraft test points to multi-agent collaborative CONOPS.
• Strengthen engineering evidence through CI, static and dynamic analysis, focused code reviews, software documentation, software designs, ICDs, system models, test results, and traceability artifacts.
• Share safe software practices through code reviews, design discussions, and clear technical write-ups.

Required qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 4 years with a Master’s degree; or 2 year with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Strong C++ development experience, including modern C++, testing, debugging, and performance-aware design.
• Experience building software for real-time, embedded, robotics, autonomy, aerospace, or similarly constrained systems.
• Experience integrating software with hardware, simulation, Hardware in the Loop (HIL), or production-like test environments and diagnosing reliability or performance issues.
• Familiarity with C++ software design patterns and the ability to work effectively within an existing architecture.
• Strong Git and Linux development skills, along with modern software development practices such as CI/CD and test-focused development.
• Ability to write clear technical documentation and collaborate across software, systems, test, and platform teams.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with autonomy middleware, interface definitions, Python-based configuration tooling, CMake, Conan, or reusable C++ library integration.
• Familiarity with high-reliability or safety-critical development practices, such as static analysis, coding standards, traceability, and requirements-based testing.
• Experience developing against strict C++ coding standards such as MISRA C++ or JSF AV C++.
• Hands-on experience with airworthiness or software assurance frameworks such as MIL-HDBK-516, DO-178C, or equivalent safety standards.
• Experience taking a software component through verification, qualification, or certification evidence review.

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