Engineering Manager, CI, Build and Packaging (R3884) - Shield AI

Job Title: Engineering Manager, CI, Build and Packaging (R3884)
Job Location: San Diego Metro Area
Job Listing URL: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/98fa05a9-d228-4ff6-afa8-8c592f6cd90e
Job Description: Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With nine offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

Job Description:
The CI, Build and Packaging team seeks to improve the development velocity of both Hivemind teams and customers, with the optimization of workflows and guidelines, alongside tooling for internal and external use. This team will also champion development and refinement of the CI systems for optimal efficiency and performance. This means owning build architecture, developer tools, defining metrics & signals, and deciding what strategic bets the company should take to improve the software development velocity and reliability. The CI Build and Packaging Manager will lead this team as they work with software engineers to understand their development process and identify places to improve. These decisions impact all Hivemind engineers!
What you'll do:
Lead and grow the CI, Build and Packaging team — coach and develop engineers, manage performance, and foster a culture of operational excellence, user empathy, and continuous improvement.
Set strategic direction for the Build and Packaging function, in partnership with Software Operations and engineering leadership. This includes defining priorities, making technical trade-offs, and aligning with company-wide goals.
Own the developer productivity roadmap, including build system reliability, CI/CD optimization, developer tooling, and standardization of engineering workflows and guidelines.
Drive cross-functional collaboration, working closely with engineering teams to understand friction points, gather feedback, and ensure Build and Packaging efforts are solving real and impactful problems.
Ensure observability of developer productivity by defining and interpreting metrics and signals that measure engineering health, software quality, and development velocity.
Oversee architecture decisions related to internal tooling and infrastructure that supports scalable and efficient software development.
Represent the voice of developers in engineering planning by championing ease-of-use, system resilience, and feedback loops within Hivemind’s developer ecosystem.
Required qualifications:
10+ years of experience in Software Engineering, or equivalent engineering roles
3+ years of people leadership experience
Strong understanding of C++ (or other compiled language), Linux and CMake
Experience with AWS public cloud infrastructure
B.S. or Master’s degree in Engineering or related field
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
You are organized and methodical
You have a demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself and others to high standards, and being kind to others
Preferred qualifications:
Knowledge and experience of Rust
Experience with Conan Package Manager (Conan 2 preferred)
Experience building production ready developer tools from scratch
Experience with drones or automated vehicles
Experience in other similar DevOps/DevEx roles, with hands on implementation