Staff Engineer, Perception (R5611)
Posted Updated
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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Shield AI’s mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. We are seeking a Senior or Staff Robotics Perception Engineer to develop and deploy advanced perception and navigation capabilities for autonomous aircraft operating in complex and GNSS-denied environments.
This role requires deep expertise in visual-inertial odometry (VIO), visual SLAM, vision-based navigation, state estimation, and camera–IMU sensor fusion. You will take algorithms from early-stage prototypes through embedded implementation, field testing, and flight validation on operational autonomous platforms.
This is not a general AI/ML or object-detection role. We are looking for an engineer whose core expertise lies at the intersection of robotics perception, VIO/SLAM, state estimation, camera and inertial sensing, and real-time embedded deployment.
What you'll do:
- Design, develop, and deploy VIO, visual SLAM, visual localization, and vision-based navigation capabilities for autonomous aircraft.
- Develop robust state-estimation and sensor-fusion solutions using cameras, IMUs, and other onboard sensors.
- Build geometric computer-vision components, including feature tracking, optical flow, pose estimation, triangulation, and visual localization.
- Develop geo-localization and map-matching capabilities using satellite, aerial, or orthophoto imagery.
- Integrate perception and navigation algorithms with flight-control and autonomy systems.
- Implement and optimize algorithms in C++ for real-time operation on embedded Linux platforms.
- Develop and maintain real-time camera and video-processing pipelines using technologies such as GStreamer and V4L2.
- Optimize workloads for NVIDIA Jetson, Orin, or comparable embedded-compute platforms, including CUDA and TensorRT where appropriate.
Required qualifications:
- Significant hands-on experience developing robotics perception or navigation systems.
- Strong expertise in VIO, visual SLAM, vision-based navigation, or GNSS-denied localization.
- Deep understanding of camera–IMU sensor fusion, state estimation, calibration, and time synchronization.
- Strong knowledge of geometric computer vision, including feature tracking, optical flow, pose estimation, triangulation, and visual localization.
- Experience deploying perception or navigation capabilities on UAS/UAVs or other autonomous robotic platforms.
- Strong C++ development skills and experience working in Linux environments.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with NVIDIA Jetson, Orin, or similar embedded-compute platforms.
- Experience optimizing perception workloads using CUDA, TensorRT, or comparable acceleration technologies.
- Hands-on experience with GStreamer, V4L2, camera pipelines, and real-time video processing.
- Experience deploying containerized software to embedded platforms using Docker.
- Experience with vision-based navigation, geo-localization, or map matching using satellite, aerial, or orthophoto imagery.
- Familiarity with frameworks and libraries such as OpenVINS, VINS-Fusion, ORB-SLAM3, GTSAM, Ceres Solver, OpenCV, or Kalibr.
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Our international teammates receive a comprehensive total rewards package aligned to your country office location. For full details on compensation and benefits, please consult your talent acquisition partner.
Skills
As published by lever · 14 questions · 7 written answers
Basics
Resume/CV, Full name, Email, Phone, Current location, Current company, LinkedIn URL, Twitter URL, GitHub URL, Portfolio URL, Other website
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- Are you local to or willing to relocate? optional
- What office(s) would you be willing to relocate to? (Select all that apply) optional
- Please select all languages that you are at minimum business conversational or fluent in
- Shield AI provides technology, services, and support to the United States military and allied forces with their various missions. If selected for employment with Shield AI, your contributions will directly relate to and/or support these missions. Are there any reasons why you would not be able to fully contribute in support of the U.S. military and allied forces?
- This position may require access to information and technology that is subject to export controls, such as EAR. Are you any of the following?
- Are you a transitioning service member?
- If yes, what partnership program are you working with? optional
Written answers (7)
- If you selected international, what location(s)? optional
- (Optional) If you selected other or would like to expand on the above, feel free to do so below: optional
- If you selected "A protected Individual" OR "Other" to the above question, please explain further. optional
- If other, please provide further details optional
- When are you available to start your fellowship? optional
- When are you available for full time work? optional
- What full time job(s) are you applying for?