Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy Capabilities – Space (R5368)

Focusing on the space portfolio, you’ll be creating autonomy capabilities for satellites and missile defense applications that span large-scale distributed optimization, automated tasking and scheduling, track fusion, RPO operations, and space vehicle motion/behavior planning. In many of these applications, you’ll have the opportunity to build capabilities from the ground up and be the first to integrate them onto new platforms. You’ll traditionally start with shorter-term R&D efforts or aligned customer programs but with the intent that successful efforts will grow into larger, multi-year programs. In many cases, the capabilities you will develop are at the cutting-edge and so demonstrating the ability to operate in grey space and at the intersection of the state-of-the-now and the state-of-the-possible is both exciting and crucial. As a Staff Engineer, you will lead the technical delivery of complex autonomy capabilities and demonstrate the ability to operate in significantly more grey space than more junior engineers, helping customers shape their requirements, define technical approaches for the team, and drive technical execution throughout the development process. You will combine your deep technical expertise with systems-level thinking to deliver scalable and operationally ready autonomy solutions.

Multi-Objective Optimization – Use advanced optimization strategies to perform large-scale distributed decision making, task allocation, and resource scheduling in multi-satellite coordinated missions

Weapons Target Assignment – Employ cutting edge approaches for weapons target assignment and motion planning for fleets of space vehicles and interceptors that have critical roles in our national defense

Advance the State of the Art – Pioneer advanced topics in low-SWaP optimal control, tactical behavior management in cooperative and adversarial contexts, and information-aware planning

Rigorous Software Development – Develop high-performance software modules that are well-tested, have clear interfaces and span-of-control, and are ready for mid-to-high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) insertions

Cross-Functional Collaboration – Collaborate with cross-functional teams including perception, planning, simulation, hardware, and flight test to ensure seamless integration of autonomy solutions on real-world platforms

Deployment & Test Support – Deploy autonomy capabilities to real space vehicles, supporting analysis of mission logs to verify software performance and validate system operational effect

R&D and Road-mapping – Contribute to autonomy roadmaps by researching and prototyping new algorithms, identifying tactical capability gaps, and proposing novel solutions that advance Shield AI’s mission

Travel Requirement – Members of this team typically travel around 10-15% of the year (to different office locations, customer sites, and flight integration events).