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Staff Engineer, Data Platform (R5659)

Shield AI· Hivemind Enterprise Division – Engineering
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San Diego, CA$150k - $230kFull Time EmployeePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Staff Data Platform Engineer role focused on defining and building Shield AI's data foundation and knowledge-graph-centered API layer to support human and agentic workflows across data configurations, test executions, training data, and results.

Responsibilities

  • Develop a unifying Graph API: Lead the architecture and implementation of the knowledge graph and multi-modal API layer that serves as the backbone for human, service, and agentic workflows.
  • Own DataOps infrastructure: Research, optimize, and maintain the storage, indexing, query, ingestion, and compute infrastructure used throughout the data lifecycle.
  • Establish best-practices: Establish durable, best-practice patterns for schema modeling, relationships, lineage, and schema evolution.
  • Turbocharge agentic data access: Build APIs that enable agents to retrieve structured, connected, and explainable context rather than relying only on keyword or vector similarity.
  • Develop reference architectures: Establish recommended storage and compute profiles, deployment patterns, benchmarks, and operational guidance for both internal and customer-managed infrastructure.
  • Advise downstream teams: Partner directly with autonomy, ML, test, infrastructure, product, and customer-facing teams to turn real workflows into reusable platform capabilities from modeling to integrations.
  • Build first-party integrations: Deliver integrations that make important data easy to collect and aggregate, including data produced by simulations, test infrastructure, training systems, and edge devices.
  • Improve developer experience: Create self-service APIs, SDKs, tools, examples, and diagnostics that make correct data modeling and ingestion the easiest path.
  • Drive technical direction: Evaluate emerging data and AI infrastructure technologies, make principled build-versus-buy decisions, and guide implementation across team boundaries.
  • Raise operational quality: Establish expectations for observability, performance, reliability, security, data integrity, disaster recovery, and lifecycle management.

Qualifications

  • Significant experience designing and operating distributed data solutions, storage systems, or data-intensive backend services.
  • Strong software engineering skills and a record of delivering production systems in Go and Python.
  • Deep understanding of data modeling, API design, schema evolution, identity, consistency, indexing, query planning, and data lifecycle concerns.
  • Experience working across multiple storage modalities (relational/graph databases, object storage, analytical/columnar systems, file storage).
  • Experience designing reliable ingestion and access paths for high-volume or operationally important data.
  • Strong understanding of Kubernetes, Linux, networking, security, storage, observability, and distributed-systems fundamentals.
  • Experience deploying data infrastructure across cloud or customer-managed environments using modern Infrastructure as Code and platform engineering practices.
  • Ability to evaluate technologies through prototypes, benchmarks, operational requirements, and total lifecycle cost.
  • Experience defining architecture and technical standards while remaining hands-on in implementation and debugging.
  • Demonstrated ability to collaborate with ML researchers, autonomy engineers, test teams, platform engineers, and product stakeholders.
  • Clear technical communication and the ability to make complex data architecture understandable to both specialists and downstream users.

Skills

Required:Distributed data design and operationGo and PythonData modeling, API design, schema evolutionKubernetes / Linux / security / observabilityInfrastructure as Code / platform engineeringArchitecture leadership

Benefits

  • Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
  • Temporary employee offer package (after 60 days of employment) with temporary benefits
Last updated Oct 23, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Shield AI

Autonomy for the world.

Our mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.

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