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Autonomy Engineer- Behavior and Motion Planning (R6007)

Shield AI· Hivemind Enterprise Division – Engineering
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San Diego, CA$135k - $300kFull Time EmployeePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Engineer role on the Behavior and Motion planning team developing, deploying, and optimizing path planning algorithms for autonomous systems in real-world environments, with opportunities to mentor others and influence architecture and roadmaps.

Responsibilities

  • Research, design, and implement state-of-the-art algorithms for autonomous trajectory planning and control for single and multi-agent systems.
  • Build reliable, robust, and maintainable software, primarily in modern C++, with Python used for prototyping, analysis, automation, and testing.
  • Develop comprehensive tests and evaluate planning stack performance in simulation and, where applicable, on real hardware.
  • Diagnose complex algorithmic and software failures, including concurrency, performance, and integration issues.
  • Collaborate with teams across the organization to refine requirements and deliver capabilities that meet operational needs.
  • Contribute to the design and architecture of scalable, maintainable autonomy and software architecture.
  • Take new product features from ideation to verification, flight testing, and maturation.
  • Mentor and provide technical guidance to junior engineers.
  • Stay current with the latest advancements in robotics, and apply them to solve challenging problems.
  • Projects you might work on: Motion planning for safe, dynamically feasible behavior; collaborative/distributed motion planning for multi-agent scenarios; effects and action planning; incorporating various motion/dynamics models; software to interact with payloads; planning with vision-language models or VLAs; validation via software/hardware/vehicle-in-the-loop simulation.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, applied mathematics, operations research, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • Demonstrated experience building, testing, and debugging nontrivial C++ software for optimization, motion planning, robotics, autonomous systems, or related domains.
  • Experience writing and debugging modern C++, including concurrency patterns and diagnosing data races, deadlocks, lifetime errors.
  • Working experience with Python for prototyping, analysis, automation, or testing.
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals: algorithms, data structures, testing, debugging, version control, CI/CD, maintainable design.
  • Practical experience developing and debugging software on Linux.
  • Ability to communicate technical decisions and collaborate across disciplines.
  • For senior level: Master's degree in CS/Robotics or related field and 5+ years of relevant experience or PhD with 4+ years of relevant experience.

Skills

Required:Autonomy/Path Planning algorithmsC++PythonLinuxSoftware engineering fundamentalsCommunication and collaboration

Benefits

  • Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
  • Temporary employee offer package includes temporary benefits (after 60 days of employment)
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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