Shield AI

Senior Engineer, Software (R6010)

Shield AI$120K — $145K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 4+ years of software engineering experience or equivalent practical experience
  • Demonstrated technical judgment in designing and operating developer tools and platforms
  • Experience owning software throughout its lifecycle from design to continuous improvement
  • Systems thinking to create coherent, reusable solutions for developer needs
  • Strong customer orientation towards internal developers
  • Effective collaboration and communication skills across teams and stakeholders
  • Ability to advocate for and drive adoption of new tools and practices
  • Experience with AWS and cloud-native development

Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and operate tools and platforms to improve the Hivemind developer experience
  • Advance local development workflows and reusable engineering capabilities
  • Integrate agentic AI capabilities into developer tools and workflows
  • Partner with engineering teams to identify and resolve developer friction
  • Enable co-development and inner-source collaboration through accessible tooling and documentation
  • Drive adoption of developer tools through feedback and communication
  • Own solutions through the entire development lifecycle from discovery to continuous improvement
  • Utilize DORA metrics and feedback to measure outcomes and guide investments
  • Contribute to technical direction through collaboration across engineering teams
  • Lead cross-team initiatives and establish longer-term technical direction at the Staff level

Benefits

  • Comprehensive benefits package including health and wellness programs
  • Bonus opportunities
  • Equity participation options
  • Flexible working arrangements
Full Job Description
Job Description:

Hivemind is looking for an experienced Senior or Staff Software Engineer to join our Developer Experience Engineering team.

The Developer Experience team owns the tools, platforms, and practices that shape how engineers build software for Hivemind. This includes local development environments, devcontainers, our internal developer platform, project templates, and approaches that enable co-development and inner-source collaboration across engineering teams.

You will build tools and paved paths that make development faster, more consistent, and more reliable. A near-term focus for this role will be bringing agentic AI capabilities into our developer tools and workflows in ways that deliver meaningful, measurable value to engineers.

This is a hands-on engineering role with broad organizational impact. You will partner directly with developers, identify recurring sources of friction, turn ambiguous needs into durable solutions, and drive adoption through documentation, advocacy, and close collaboration. You will care about engineering productivity and use signals such as DORA metrics and developer feedback to guide priorities and measure outcomes.

This position may be filled at the Senior or Staff level based on the candidate's experience, demonstrated technical leadership, and scope of impact.

What you'll do:
  • Design, build, and operate tools and platforms that improve the end-to-end Hivemind developer experience
  • Advance local development workflows, devcontainers, internal developer platforms, project templates, and other reusable engineering capabilities
  • Bring agentic AI capabilities into developer tools and workflows, evaluating opportunities and turning promising ideas into reliable, practical solutions
  • Partner with engineering teams to understand developer needs, identify recurring friction, and create paved paths that improve productivity without limiting appropriate flexibility
  • Enable co-development and inner-source collaboration through accessible tooling, documentation, standards, and contribution practices
  • Drive adoption of developer tools by working closely with engineers, gathering feedback, providing guidance, and clearly communicating their value
  • Own solutions through discovery, design, implementation, testing, deployment, operation, and continuous improvement
  • Use DORA metrics, developer feedback, adoption data, and other signals to understand outcomes and guide investment
  • Contribute to technical direction through design reviews, architectural decisions, thoughtful tradeoffs, and collaboration across engineering teams
  • At the Staff level, lead cross-team initiatives, establish longer-term technical direction, and influence how Hivemind approaches developer productivity at organizational scale

Required qualifications:
  • 4+ years of software engineering experience or equivalent practical experience
  • Demonstrated technical judgment in the design and operation of developer tools, platforms, backend services, APIs, distributed systems, or related production software
  • Experience owning software from initial design through deployment, operation, adoption, and continuous improvement
  • Systems thinking and the ability to turn recurring or ambiguous developer needs into coherent, reusable solutions
  • Strong customer orientation toward internal developers and an interest in understanding and improving how engineering work gets done
  • Effective collaboration and communication across engineering teams and organizational stakeholders
  • Ability to advocate for new tools and practices, incorporate feedback, and build adoption through influence
  • Experience with AWS and cloud-native development practices
  • Experience with Git, GitLab, Backstage, or similar developer-platform technologies

Preferred qualifications:
  • For Staff-level consideration, a demonstrated record of leading technically complex, cross-team initiatives and shaping technical direction beyond an immediate team
  • Experience building or operating internal developer platforms, developer portals, development environments, or reusable engineering frameworks
  • Experience applying AI or agentic systems to software development tools and workflows
  • Proficiency in one or more relevant languages, such as Python, Go, JavaScript, or TypeScript/Node.js
  • Experience with devcontainers, project scaffolding, service templates, or standardized local development environments
  • Experience enabling inner-source development or contribution across team boundaries
  • Familiarity with DORA metrics, developer productivity measurement, and qualitative developer-experience research

#LI-DM2

#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.

About Shield AI

Shield AI is a defense technology company that develops artificially intelligent systems for military applications. The company was founded in 2015 by Brandon Tseng, Ryan Tseng, and Andrew Reiter, and is headquartered in San Diego, California. Shield AI's products include autonomous drones and software that can be used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and other military operations. The company's mission is to reduce the number of military casualties by providing soldiers with better intelligence and situational awareness. Shield AI has received funding from a number of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund.
Learn more about Shield AI
Size
200 employees
Industry
Founded
2015

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Shield AI

More Enterprise Technology Jobs

Find similar Senior Engineer, Software (R6010) jobs: