Shield AI · 2 days ago
Sr. Engineering Manager, Discrete Planning for Autonomy (R4318)
San Francisco, California
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$260K/yr - $400K/yr
9+ years expShield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company focused on protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. The role of Sr. Engineering Manager for Discrete Planning involves leading a team of engineers to develop advanced autonomy capabilities, ensuring the execution of complex autonomous missions and mentoring team members.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)Autonomous VehiclesDronesMachine LearningNational Security
Responsibilities
Lead the technical direction and roadmap for a range of discrete planning capabilities including but not limited to robot team management, multi-agent task assignment, scheduling & coordination, intelligent failure handling, intelligent attrition management, and system explainability
Enable intuitive and easy workflows for SDK customers to develop customizations and extensions to successfully achieve their autonomy objectives and aspirations
Serve as the architect for the Task Planning stack to enable modularity, correctness and extensibility
Grow & mentor the autonomy and software engineers in the team via performance feedback, technical guidance and code reviews
Ensure high morale and excitement in the team by connecting day-to-day efforts to the big picture, ensuring alignment of personal goals with company objectives, and actively taking steps to set them up for success
Grow the team by identifying gaps and projecting headcount needs
Lead planning and execution for the team to ensure informed team commitments and timely delivery of those commitments
Work in close collaboration with other Pilot teams (State-estimation, Object tracking, Path & Motion Planning, Mapping) to ensure correctness and cohesiveness of the overall Pilot product
Work in collaboration with Program and Product managers to define a feasible technical roadmap for future autonomy solutions
Qualification
Required
M.S in Computer science, Aerospace or related engineering field
9+ years of experience in engineering autonomous systems or equivalent engineering roles
3+ years of people leadership experience leading teams of 4+ people
Experience with discrete planning (preferably in autonomy domain), behavior or motion planning
Demonstrated ability to take ideas from academic works, and polish them to enable production ready capabilities
Proficient in software delivery and managing execution toward tight timelines
Experience with C++11 or newer in a production environment
Experience in a collaborative development environment, focused on continuous integration/delivery & test-driven development
Strong knowledge of modern software engineering best practices
Demonstrated record of working hard, strong communication skills, being a trustworthy teammate, and being kind to others
Strong organizational skills
Preferred
Experience in the autonomous vehicle industry
Ph.D. in Computer science, or related engineering field
5+ years of people leadership experience
Experience leading a team that shipped commercial grade products
Experience in productizing prototypes into commercial products
Benefits
Bonus
Benefits
Equity
Temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Company
Shield AI
Shield AI is a deep-tech company that focuses on developing AI-powered systems to enhance the safety of service members and civilians.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Shield AI has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (3)
2024 (3)
2021 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$1.31BKey Investors
Hercules CapitalUS Innovative Technology FundSnowpoint Ventures
2025-03-06Series F· $240M
2023-12-29Debt Financing· $200M
2023-10-31Series F· $300M
Leadership Team
Gary Steele
Chief Executive Officer
Brandon Tseng
Co-Founder
Recent News
Washington Technology
2026-01-11
Company data provided by crunchbase