Multi‑Target Tracking & Sensor Fusion Engineer (R4172)

Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company focused on protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. The Multi‑Target Tracking & Sensor Fusion Engineer will design, implement, and deploy tracking capabilities for autonomous systems, leveraging expertise in target state estimation and multi-sensor data fusion.

Responsibilities:

• Research, design, and implement state‑of‑the‑art multi‑target tracking and data association algorithms
• Develop production‑quality C++ software for deployed military aviation platforms, ensuring deterministic, real‑time performance
• Build and maintain comprehensive unit, integration, and system‑level tests validating algorithm correctness and robustness
• Enhance and calibrate sensor models within advanced simulation and HWIL environments
• Collaborate on feature planning, decomposition, and milestone execution within an agile development framework
• Contribute to flight‑test planning, performance analysis, benchmarking, and regression evaluation
• (Principal-level applicants) Provide technical leadership, design reviews, algorithmic mentorship, and subject‑matter expertise across the autonomy organization

Requirements:

• Strong to expert proficiency in modern C++ (C++11 or newer) and object‑oriented design principles
• Professional experience deploying C++ software into embedded or real‑time systems, ideally for DoD or aerospace applications
• Hands‑on experience designing and implementing state estimation algorithms (e.g., KF, EKF, UKF, ESKF) for real‑world systems
• Demonstrated ability to develop, optimize, and maintain complex tracking or sensor fusion algorithms
• Experience with CI pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and high‑reliability software practices
• Familiarity with MATLAB or Python for prototyping is acceptable; however, primary development experience must be in C++. Candidates with MATLAB‑dominant backgrounds are unlikely to be a fit
• Experience designing, developing, and deploying multi-target tracking systems for defense applications across one or more domains: air, maritime, ground, or space
• Familiarity with tracking architectures for radar, EO/IR, acoustic, RF, AIS, ADS-B, or ELINT sensors
• Experience building and tuning error budgets, developing performance models, and conducting sensitivity analyses for estimation/tracking accuracy
• Hands-on experience implementing and optimizing multi-hypothesis tracking (MHT), joint probabilistic data association (JPDA), or random finite set (RFS)-based filters
• Exposure to distributed or hierarchical fusion, including track-to-track fusion or multi-platform coordination
• Experience supporting requirements derivation, verification, and validation of tracking systems in DoD or IC programs, especially in operationally representative environments
• Understanding of target dynamics modeling, including kinematic and non-kinematic state representations (e.g., turn rate models, coordinated motion, behavioral cues)
• Familiarity with sensor registration, line-of-sight geometry reconstruction, time synchronization, and calibration of extrinsic and timing offsets
• (For Principal-level candidates) Demonstrated technical leadership building multi-year road maps and leading high-performing teams through design and deployment of modern trackers