Principal Engineer, Software Architect (R4562)

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

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Lead the software architecture for Shield AI’s XBAT program across Mission, Vehicle, and Autonomy software domains. Build a safe, secure, and scalable architecture that enables high‑assurance, cyber‑relevant software development for an advanced airborne system and its ground stations, reporting to the XBAT Software Lead.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

• Define and evolve the system‑wide software architecture for XBAT, spanning airborne vehicle, ground station, and autonomy layers. 
• Translate safety and security goals into technical requirements, standards, and design patterns that guide engineers across multiple software teams. 
• Ensure architecture supports safety‑critical and cyber‑relevant workflows. This includes formalizing architecture decisions, traceability, and compliance pathways appropriate for advanced airborne systems. 
• Drive cross‑team alignment on APIs, data flows, fault handling, verification strategy, and risk management so mission, vehicle, and autonomy components integrate cleanly. 
• Partner with engineering leadership, system architects, and validation teams to balance innovation speed with rigorous assurance practices. 
• Set technical direction for long‑term scalability: modularity, maintainability, testability, and support for future capability growth or certification needs. 
• Mentor senior engineers and architects, raising the bar for design rigor, documentation quality, and architectural judgment across the organization. 
• Produce and maintain architecture artifacts: high‑level system diagrams, component interfaces, data models, risk analyses, and design rationales. 
• Lead technical reviews for major features, changes, or integration points; ensure alignment with architectural standards and safety/security constraints. 
• Define architecture governance: decision records, change control processes, quality gates, and collaboration flows among development, verification, and operations. 
• Collaborate with systems, hardware, and avionics teams to manage boundaries, timing, resource allocation, and failure modes that affect overall aircraft and mission performance. 
• Drive technology evaluation and roadmap: select or validate frameworks, middleware, and tooling that meet performance, assurance, and cyber‑hardening needs. 
• Support external or internal readiness evaluations: provide architectural evidence, participate in reviews, and help the program articulate compliance posture as requirements evolve. 
• Advocate for continuous improvement in architecture practice: metrics, architecture reviews, knowledge sharing, and onboarding for new team members. 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Deep expertise in software architecture for complex, multi‑domain systems—ideally aerospace, defense, autonomous systems, or similarly safety‑critical fields. 
• Proven track record designing and delivering production software that must satisfy stringent safety, security, or mission assurance requirements. 
• Strong systems thinking: able to navigate tradeoffs across performance, latency, reliability, testability, and certification or compliance considerations. 
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to convey architecture vision and rationale to engineers, program leads, and stakeholders. 
• Experience driving architecture adoption and discipline across multiple teams, not just authoring designs in isolation. 
• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or a closely related field, or equivalent practical experience. 
• Ability to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance desired.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Familiarity with aerospace software assurance frameworks or standards that guide high‑assurance airborne software development.  
• Experience working on or integrating autonomy, mission planning, or AI‑enabled software into real‑world systems. 
• Strong understanding of cyber hardening and secure design practices for distributed or networked vehicle systems and ground infrastructure. 
• Prior leadership or mentor role with responsibility for building and scaling architecture practices and design culture in a fast‑moving engineering organization. 
• Experience dealing with constrained platforms: real‑time requirements, limited compute, or avionics‑style integration challenges. 
• Hands‑on experience in VTOL or other advanced aircraft programs, or in programs that require austere operations, long‑range operations, or resilient autonomy. 
• Exposure to end‑to‑end product lifecycle from concept through flight test or operational deployment. 
• Practical knowledge of modern software tooling that supports traceability, CI/CD, automated verification, static analysis, or high‑assurance pipelines. 
• Comfort working in a highly collaborative, fast‑paced environment where requirements can evolve quickly and architecture must adapt without losing rigor. 

Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

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

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Compensation: USD 215,566 – 323,350 per year salary