Lead the software architecture for Shield AI's XBAT program across Mission, Vehicle, and Autonomy software domains. Build a safe, secure, and scalable architecture that enables high-assurance, cyber-relevant software development for an advanced airborne system and its ground stations, reporting to the XBAT Software Lead.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- Define and evolve the system-wide software architecture for XBAT, spanning airborne vehicle, ground station, and autonomy layers.
- Translate safety and security goals into technical requirements, standards, and design patterns that guide engineers across multiple software teams.
- Ensure architecture supports safety-critical and cyber-relevant workflows. This includes formalizing architecture decisions, traceability, and compliance pathways appropriate for advanced airborne systems.
- Drive cross-team alignment on APIs, data flows, fault handling, verification strategy, and risk management so mission, vehicle, and autonomy components integrate cleanly.
- Partner with engineering leadership, system architects, and validation teams to balance innovation speed with rigorous assurance practices.
- Set technical direction for long-term scalability: modularity, maintainability, testability, and support for future capability growth or certification needs.
- Mentor senior engineers and architects, raising the bar for design rigor, documentation quality, and architectural judgment across the organization.
- Produce and maintain architecture artifacts: high-level system diagrams, component interfaces, data models, risk analyses, and design rationales.
- Lead technical reviews for major features, changes, or integration points; ensure alignment with architectural standards and safety/security constraints.
- Define architecture governance: decision records, change control processes, quality gates, and collaboration flows among development, verification, and operations.
- Collaborate with systems, hardware, and avionics teams to manage boundaries, timing, resource allocation, and failure modes that affect overall aircraft and mission performance.
- Drive technology evaluation and roadmap: select or validate frameworks, middleware, and tooling that meet performance, assurance, and cyber-hardening needs.
- Support external or internal readiness evaluations: provide architectural evidence, participate in reviews, and help the program articulate compliance posture as requirements evolve.
- Advocate for continuous improvement in architecture practice: metrics, architecture reviews, knowledge sharing, and onboarding for new team members.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Deep expertise in software architecture for complex, multi-domain systems-ideally aerospace, defense, autonomous systems, or similarly safety-critical fields.
- Proven track record designing and delivering production software that must satisfy stringent safety, security, or mission assurance requirements.
- Strong systems thinking: able to navigate tradeoffs across performance, latency, reliability, testability, and certification or compliance considerations.
- Excellent written and verbal communication; able to convey architecture vision and rationale to engineers, program leads, and stakeholders.
- Experience driving architecture adoption and discipline across multiple teams, not just authoring designs in isolation.
- Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or a closely related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Ability to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance desired.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Familiarity with aerospace software assurance frameworks or standards that guide high-assurance airborne software development.
- Experience working on or integrating autonomy, mission planning, or AI-enabled software into real-world systems.
- Strong understanding of cyber hardening and secure design practices for distributed or networked vehicle systems and ground infrastructure.
- Prior leadership or mentor role with responsibility for building and scaling architecture practices and design culture in a fast-moving engineering organization.
- Experience dealing with constrained platforms: real-time requirements, limited compute, or avionics-style integration challenges.
- Hands-on experience in VTOL or other advanced aircraft programs, or in programs that require austere operations, long-range operations, or resilient autonomy.
- Exposure to end-to-end product lifecycle from concept through flight test or operational deployment.
- Practical knowledge of modern software tooling that supports traceability, CI/CD, automated verification, static analysis, or high-assurance pipelines.
- Comfort working in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment where requirements can evolve quickly and architecture must adapt without losing rigor.
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.
