---
title: 'Staff Platform Engineer at Shield AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-platform-engineer-shield-ai-san-diego-t739q0cnehtg'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Staff Platform Engineer at Shield AI

- **Company:** Shield AI
- **Location:** San Diego, CA
- **Compensation:** $123k–$185k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-09-11
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/270ad491-2ae9-4df1-b986-9d4e1e943328

## 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 This position may be based in San Diego, CA; Dallas, TX; Washington, D.C.; or other Shield AI locations. Shield AI is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help design and implement the internal technology platforms that power our engineering, autonomy, and enterprise operations environments. In this highly technical individual contributor role, you will serve as a senior technical expert responsible for designing and evolving scalable, secure, and highly automated platform infrastructure spanning cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments. You will work closely with engineering, security, and infrastructure teams to establish platform architecture, develop paved paths for developers, and implement automation that improves reliability, security, and development productivity across engineering teams. This role is ideal for an experienced platform engineer who thrives at the intersection of systems architecture, automation, and developer enablement, and who enjoys building the foundational systems that allow engineering organizations to move quickly and safely.

What you'll do:

Platform Architecture & Engineering

- Build and evolve scalable internal platform infrastructure supporting engineering workloads across public cloud, private cloud, and on-prem environments.
- Design and implement platform capabilities that enable standardized, secure, and repeatable application deployment of applications and services.
- Develop and maintain infrastructure-as-code frameworks and reusable platform modules to accelerate engineering productivity.
- Establish and evolve “paved path” platform patterns that simplify secure software delivery for engineering teams.

Automation & Developer Enablement

- Build automation and developer tooling that improves software delivery and engineering productivity.
- Contribute to and improve CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, and developer platform tooling.
- Collaborate with engineering teams to reduce operational friction and improve system observability, resilience, and reliability.
- Develop internal tools, platform integrations, and automation frameworks that streamline engineering workflows across the organization. Infrastructure & Systems Engineering
- Design, implement, and operate highly available infrastructure platforms supporting mission-critical engineering systems.
- Implement scalable platform solutions across cloud and on-prem environments including compute, networking, identity, and storage.
- Partner with security teams to embed strong security controls, auditability, and compliance requirements into platform architectures.
- Evaluate and introduce new technologies that improve system scalability, security, and operational efficiency.

Required Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure engineering, or site reliability engineering roles supporting large-scale systems.
- Deep hands-on experience designing, building and operating cloud or hybrid infrastructure platforms, including networking, identity, compute, and storage systems.
- Strong expertise with Infrastructure as Code and automation frameworks (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, or similar).
- Experience building or improving CI/CD pipelines, developer platform tooling, and automated deployment workflows.
- Strong systems engineering background across Linux-based environments, distributed systems, and infrastructure automation using scripting or programming languages (Python, Go, Bash, PowerShell, etc.).
- Demonstrated ability to understand, build, and own complex platform initiatives and collaborate across engineering and infrastructure teams.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical direction across multiple engineering teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

- Experience building or operating internal developer platforms (IDP) or engineering productivity platforms that support large-scale development environments.
- Experience with Kubernetes and modern container platforms.
- ·Experience deploying infrastructure across commercial and government cloud environments, including AWS and Azure.
- Familiarity with DevSecOps practices and integrating security controls into automated infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience implementing observability platforms, including centralized logging, monitoring, and distributed tracing for large-scale systems.
- Experience working within defense, aerospace, or other regulated industries, including familiarity with frameworks such as NIST or FedRAMP.

## #LI-KE1

#LC

Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

###

Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

## About Shield AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Shield AI builds AI pilots and autonomous systems for military aircraft to protect service members and civilians.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series G, venture-backed)
- **Headquarters**: San Diego, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Brandon Tseng, Ryan Tseng, Andrew Reiter

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Defense technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, aerospace
- Target customers: U.S. Department of Defense, allied nations’ military forces (B2G / Government)
- Mission or purpose statement: “Protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.”

## Products & Services
- **Hivemind**: A combat‑tested, modular autonomy stack for aircraft – self‑driving technology for drones, jets, and helicopters. Includes path‑planning, mapping, state‑estimation, computer vision, and reinforcement learning. Type: Software (AI/autonomy).
- **V‑BAT**: A vertical take‑off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial system (UAS) designed for persistent ISR and strike missions. Type: Hardware (drone).
- **X‑BAT**: An advanced unmanned aircraft system with extended endurance and payload capacity, built for multi‑domain operations. Type: Hardware (drone).
- **Hivemind Vision Systems**: Computer‑vision and sensor‑fusion capabilities integrated into Hivemind for GPS‑denied environments. Type: Software + sensors.
- **Hivemind Enterprise**: A deployable version of Hivemind for third‑party platforms and commercial applications. Type: Software.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company). Total funding raised: $3.6B (as of Series G in March 2026).
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue ~$21.7M (estimated, private) | Total Funding $3.6B (including $2B Series G led by JP Morgan Chase and Advent International, March 2026).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: JP Morgan Chase, Advent International, Blackstone, Riot Ventures, SnowPoint Ventures, Disruptive (55+ investors total). Strategic partners include U.S. DoD and allied defense forces.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 68.3% YoY to 1,283 employees; 338 active job postings (+57.2% YoY); operates in 5 countries (U.S., Australia, UAE, Norway, Ukraine); recent acquisitions of Sentient Vision Systems (2024), Heron Systems, MARTIN UAV.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Combat‑proven autonomy**: Hivemind has been tested in live military operations, providing a first‑mover advantage in contested, GPS‑denied environments.
- **Full‑stack integration**: Combines software (AI pilot), hardware (V‑BAT, X‑BAT), and sensor systems, creating a tightly integrated product ecosystem.
- **Cross‑functional engineering culture**: Engineers work across AI, robotics, aerospace, and defense – not siloed – enabling rapid iteration and field deployment.
- **Top talent pipeline**: Employees drawn from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Amazon, Anduril, and other leading defense/tech firms.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale AI pilots across all domains**: Extend Hivemind from aircraft to ships, satellites, and ground vehicles (“every military asset”).
- **International expansion**: Growing presence in Australia, Europe, and Middle East via mission autonomy centers and partnerships.
- **Deepen autonomy stack**: Continued investment in reinforcement learning, simulation, and computer vision to maintain leadership in contested‑environment autonomy.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission‑driven work**: Directly contribute to protecting service members and civilians with cutting‑edge AI and robotics.
- **Cross‑functional teams**: Engineers collaborate across disciplines (AI, hardware, software, systems) on real‑world defense challenges.
- **Benefits**: Excellent medical coverage, mental health EAP, paid parental leave, pet insurance, flexible work hours, gym discounts (SD) / on‑site gym (DC), free parking, competitive compensation, 401k with match, stock benefits.
- **Work policy**: Flexible work hours; some offices (e.g., San Diego HQ, Arlington, DC) have on‑site facilities. Remote/hybrid options available depending on role.
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapidly scaling (68% headcount growth) with hundreds of open roles across engineering, operations, and program management.

## Sources
1. [shield.ai/about](https://shield.ai/about/)
2. [shield.ai/careers](https://shield.ai/careers/)
3. [LinkedIn – Shield AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai)
4. [CBInsights – Shield AI](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/shield-ai)
5. [Lever – Shield AI Jobs](https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai)

## Other roles at Shield AI

- [Senior V-BAT Air Vehicle Operator, Field Integration and Test (R5130)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-v-bat-air-vehicle-operator-field-integration-and-test-r5130-shield-ai-8ychv8kkv7qh) — Dallas, TX
- [Principal Engineer, Fluid & Thermal Systems (R5620)](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-engineer-fluid-thermal-systems-r5620-shield-ai-seattle-jzpbwfsaek36) — Seattle, WA
- [Director, Mission Systems](https://feeny.ai/job/director-mission-systems-shield-ai-washington-96nmd081cj08) — Washington, DC
- [Staff Engineer, Safety - X-BAT (R5844)](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-safety-x-bat-r5844-shield-ai-seattle-qmh74thwt7xs) — Seattle, WA
- [Senior Production Planner, Development Programs (R5277)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-production-planner-development-programs-r5277-shield-ai-seattle-nj57x3fgq8b7) — Seattle, WA
- [Mission Systems Software Engineer (R5888)](https://feeny.ai/job/mission-systems-software-engineer-r5888-shield-ai-seattle-yw43sjwwgsn0) — Seattle, WA
- [Field Marketing Manager, India](https://feeny.ai/job/field-marketing-manager-india-shield-ai-delhi-4y6c5baq31qg) — Delhi, India
- [Senior Staff Engineer, Mission Architect (R5876)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-engineer-mission-architect-r5876-shield-ai-washington-5ftkg2h8j234) — Washington, DC
- [Engineer II, Future Concepts (R5910)](https://feeny.ai/job/engineer-ii-future-concepts-r5910-shield-ai-washington-p66bm4ktv41m) — Washington, DC
- [Staff Engineer, Aircraft Configuration Design (R5830)](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-aircraft-configuration-design-r5830-shield-ai-san-diego-5vtjqd85pzqb) — San Diego, CA