Staff Engineer, DevOps (R4666) - Shield AI

Job Title: Staff Engineer, DevOps (R4666)
Job Location: San Diego, California
Job Listing URL: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/cdb92a85-1560-4f78-bf05-908748fce1f5
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 and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With 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:
As a DevOps Engineer, you’ll own our CI/CD and automation stack — driving developer velocity, pipeline health, and large-scale test execution from single-agent runs to cluster-orchestrated mission scenarios. This is a hands-on IC role that removes bottlenecks, accelerates iteration, and ensures every engineer can test and ship with speed and rigor.
What you'll do:
Own and operate the CI/CD system across autonomy, embedded, and ground software. 
Improve developer velocity by reducing build/test cycle time and eliminating pipeline bottlenecks. 
Scale simulation test execution in CI — from containerized single-agent runs to orchestrated clusters. 
Manage infrastructure for builds and tests (Azure DevOps, Git, Artifactory, cloud build agents). 
Fully automate common tasks to create a self-service DevOps model allowing developers to be fully empowered.
Partner with developers to resolve build/test failures quickly and set best practices for integration. 
Integrate CI pipelines with HIL and simulation environments for automated validation. 
Implement monitoring, dashboards, and alerts for CI/CD health and performance. 
Collaborate with the Developer Ops teams across Shield AI to introduce new technologies, best practices, and shared standards. 
Required qualifications:
BS in CS, CE, EE, or related field with 7+ years industry experience (or MS/PhD with 5+ years). 
Strong expertise in CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions). 
Proficiency with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, cloud build clusters). 
Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell). 
Hands-on experience integrating automated testing into CI pipelines. 
Demonstrated success improving developer productivity at scale. 
Demonstrated track record of excellence as a primary contributor on projects - showcasing the ability to navigate through development cycles, overcome obstacles, and deliver high-quality solutions in a fast-paced environment   
Preferred qualifications:
Experience building simulation or HIL-based test pipelines. 
Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus). 
Background in robotics, autonomy, or aerospace systems.