Discrete Planning Engineer (R5440)

About the role

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company building intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. This Discrete Planning Engineer position sits in the Discrete Planning Group, part of the Autonomy Team for Hivemind Enterprise Product, which develops algorithms for intelligent flight behavior. The engineer works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, discrete optimization and motion planning, writing software for core systems, setting software standards, refining technical requirements, driving technical improvements and mentoring other engineers.

Key responsibilities

• Research, design and implement algorithms for optimal task allocation, scheduling and temporal sequencing of heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles (land, air and others).
• Improve existing C++ mission planning software applicable across different vehicle types and compute platforms.
• Work with engineers, program managers and product managers to define a technical roadmap for future autonomy solutions and SDK offerings.
• Break down missions into assignable tasks based on agent capabilities, such as navigating in contested and denied environments and adapting to mission changes in real time.
• Build feasible and optimal action plans for distributed teams of autonomous vehicles that also minimize human operator workload.
• Run full software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of complex multi-agent missions.

Required profile

• Typically a PhD with graduate work in Optimization or Operations Research, or a Master's degree with 4 or more years of work in the same areas.
• Significant experience implementing algorithms in C++ and debugging multi-threaded code with tools such as gdb.

Required skills

• Integer or mixed integer linear programming, constraint programming and convex optimization.
• Multi-objective optimization and use of solvers such as Gurobi, Google-OR and CPLEX.
• C++ implementation of algorithms and debugging with gdb.

Ways to stand out: past publications on optimization (Google Scholar profile).

Salary ranges by level: Engineer II $135,000-$200,000, Senior Engineer $165,000-$250,000, Staff Engineer $200,000-$300,000, Senior Staff Engineer $230,000-$350,000.