Shield AI
 is hiring a fractional

Principal Autonomy Architect

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Weekly Commitment

20 - 40 hrs

Compensation Range

$26K - $40K / mo

Company Stage

Growth-stage VC

Industry

Defense-tech

Location

Onsite (San Diego, DC, or Boston only)
moonlight ok
moonlight ok
convert full-time
convert full-time
equity offered
equity offered
hands-on needed
hands-on needed

Note: We've kept the name of the company private. If you'd like to know the company before requesting an intro, just email us at hello [at] fractionaljobs.io

About Us

As an Autonomy Architect within the Hivemind Pilot team, you will lead the development of the Pilot stack, Shield AI’s edge autonomy offering. This is a pivotal technical role that blends architectural ownership with hands-on involvement in methodology development and direction setting. Your work will directly shape how autonomy software is developed, deployed, and operated across a range of systems—from aircraft to maritime and ground vehicles. You will partner closely with the Pilot Director and cross-functional leadership to define and execute the vision for Pilot: an extensible, developer-focused, autonomy SDK that enables solving the various problem areas typical to edge autonomy ranging from state-estimation to task-planning. You’ll be accountable for technical correctness, run-time sophistication, and system reliability required for mission-critical applications.

What You'll Do:

  • Define and develop robust methodologies for some of the core challenges pertaining to large-scale teaming in contested environments including but not limited to collaborative decision making, path-planning, object tracking, state estimation and intelligent multi-agent autonomy solutions.
  • Collaborate with a strong team of autonomy engineers to take concepts all the way through production ensuring robust, resilient implementations that operate with a high level of reliability
  • Collaborate with Pilot Director to shape the roadmap for Pilot to accelerate value delivery to customers and sophistication of the stack.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to inform their roadmaps and influence capability development with an eye toward long-term vision
  • Collaborate with other architects to ensure seamless integration of the Pilot stack with other elements of Hivemind SDK for a consistent customer experience.

Required Qualifications:

  • 10+ years of experience in the AI & autonomy domain
  • Deep expertise and experience in various areas of autonomy including discrete planning for task assignment / scheduling, path-planning (sampling-based, graph-based), next-best-view planning, distributed state-estimation, collaborative object tracking, and active perception
  • Experience deploying complex autonomy software to relevant real-world platforms with demonstrable results
  • Experience working with a large team of engineers as a technical mentor / guide with the ability to enhance rigor and correctness in methodologies across the stack
  • Experience in forming the long-term vision and strategy for the technology stack in support of product needs bridging the gap between feasibility and rapid evolution
  • Strong experience with software development using C++.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience in the defense and aerospace domain
  • Experience with assured processes toward software certification (DO-178C).
  • Experience deploying cutting edge technology to large (Group 4/5) aircraft
  • Familiarity with CI/CD and software design principles

$13,000 - $20,000 biweekly

Temporary Employee Offer Package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

​​

How to Apply

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