Principal Engineer, Edge Applications & Mission Systems

About the role

Shield AI, a defense-tech company, is looking for a Principal Engineer to drive the technical direction, architecture and delivery of its edge application platform for autonomous systems. The platform connects operators, autonomous platforms, mission data and external command-and-control systems, from single-vehicle ground control to coordinated fleet operations and theater-level mission planning. The role combines deep defense-domain knowledge with software engineering judgment and direct involvement in architecture and critical implementation.

Key responsibilities

• Own the platform architecture across operator applications, backend services, mission data, integration interfaces and edge deployment environments.
• Guide mission applications from single-vehicle ground control to multi-vehicle supervision, heterogeneous fleets and theater-level planning and battlespace management.
• Build APIs, SDKs, shared data models and integration tooling so customers can extend the platform, keeping it compatible as it evolves.
• Lead integration with external mission systems and defense C2 environments, exchanging vehicle state, mission information and sensor data.
• Partner with autonomy, AI, product and design teams on operator workflows, defining authority, approval boundaries and observability for AI-assisted workflows.
• Establish fleet and configuration capabilities: asset inventory, readiness and health monitoring, versioning, controlled updates, rollback and traceability.
• Design for edge use in contested environments: intermittent connectivity, constrained bandwidth and compute, and recovery from partial failures.
• Translate product strategy and customer needs into a technical roadmap, resolve dependencies and make tradeoffs, and lead products through deployment and sustainment.

Required profile

• 15+ years of professional software engineering experience, including complex production systems.
• 5+ years of technical leadership as a technical lead, architect or Principal Engineer.
• Deep experience developing defense GCS and C2 applications and shipping products for defense customers.
• Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Robotics or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Required skills

• Software architecture and implementation across distributed systems, APIs, data management and operator-facing software.
• Building extensible platforms and autonomous robotics applications (fleet operations, telemetry).
• Networked systems and edge deployments, including reliability and security under limited connectivity.
• Preferred: experience with Lattice or similar defense C2/BMS platforms, agentic/AI-assisted applications, geospatial applications and secure software delivery.