Staff Engineer, XBAT DevOps (R4542)

About TP

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.

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: 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.
• Ability to obtain: A S//SAR level security clearance desired.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience: Building simulation or HIL-based test pipelines.
• CMake/C++ expertise: Or equivalent.
• Strong understanding of: Dependency management and proficiency with either Conan or CPM.
• Familiarity with: Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus).
• Background in: Robotics, autonomy, or aerospace systems.