SECTION I · THE BRIEF
Brief #18272Updated 24 JUL 2026SAN DIEGO, CALeverSOFTWARE COMPANIES
Employbl Company Profile

Senior Staff Engineer, Discrete Planning (R5440)

Shield AI, Inc. operates as an artificial intelligence robotics company. The Company protects service members and innocent civilians with artificially intelligent systems which enables robots to see, reason about, and…

Location
San Diego, CA
Company size
500–1,000
Posted
1w ago
Via
Lever
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  • 01Comp band & equity packageLocked
  • 02Seniority & experience requirementsLocked
  • 03Interview process & rubricLocked
  • 04Hiring manager & team contextLocked
  • 05Growth trajectory in this roleLocked
  • 06Offer & decision timelineLocked

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Senior Staff Engineer, Discrete Planning (R5440) · Shield AI

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Job title
Senior Staff Engineer, Discrete Planning (R5440)
Job location
San Diego, California
Job description
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and 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 Discrete Planning Group is a part of the Autonomy Team for Hivemind Enterprise Product. The group is an agile set of engineers focused on researching and developing state-of-the-art algorithms that drive intelligent and confidence-inspiring flight behaviors while accounting for an uncertain and dynamic world. As a member of the group, you will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, discrete optimization, and motion planning. You will architect and write high-quality software for core systems, set standards for software engineering, refine technical requirements, drive strategic technical improvements, and mentor other engineers.

What you'll do:
  • Research, design, and implement state-of-the-art algorithms for optimal task allocation, scheduling and temporal sequencing of heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles (land, air, other).
  • Solidify and improve existing C++ based mission planning software applicable across disparate vehicle types and compute platforms.
  • Work with our engineers, program managers, and product managers to define a technical roadmap for future autonomy solutions and SDK offerings.
  • Projects you might work on:
  • Breakdown a mission into assignable tasks based on agent capabilities such as navigating in contested and denied environments and adapting to mission changes in real-time.
  • Construct feasible and optimal action plans for distributed teams of autonomous vehicles that also minimize human operator workload.
  • Full software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of complex multi-agent missions.
  • Required qualifications:
  • Typically requires a PhD with graduate work in Optimization or Operations Research. Master’s degree with 4 or more years of work in the same areas.
  • Expert in Integer or Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Constraint Programming, Convex Optimization, Multi-Objective-Optimization and using established solvers such as Gurobi, Google-OR, CPLEX etc.
  • Significant experience in implementing algorithms in C++ and using debuggers such as gdb to troubleshoot execution within a multi-threaded environment.
  • Ways to stand out:
  • Past publications on Optimization(google scholar profile).
  • View job listing ↗

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    Shield AI headquarters

    San Diego, CA

    Company size

    5001,000 employees

    Founded

    2015

    Total raised

    $3,583,144,999

    View company profile ↗

    Funding rounds

    • Series G$2B
    • Debt Financing$250M
    • Series F$20M
    • Series F$240M
    • Debt Financing$200M
    • Series F$300M
    • Series E$60M
    • Series E$90M
    • Debt Financing$75M
    • Series D$210M
    • Debt Financing$20M
    • Series C$70M
    • Series B$25M
    • Series A$10M
    • Series A$10.5M
    • Seed$2M
    • Angel$595K