Staff Engineer, DevOps (5431)

Shield AI is a defense-tech company building autonomous aircraft and intelligent systems. The Staff Engineer, DevOps will own and maintain the C++ build system for autonomous aircraft while improving developer experience, accelerating development cycles, and implementing reliable CI, testing, monitoring, and automation solutions.

Responsibilities:

• Be the expert on our native (C++) software build process
• Improve developer velocity by reducing build/test cycle time and eliminating pipeline bottlenecks
• Collaborate with Software Engineers to understand their requirements, propose designs, and implement identified solutions
• 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 related to build system performance for both local development and CI workflows
• Use agentic solutions to aid in quickly identifying root cause around build failures and getting the appropriate feedback to a Software Engineer

Requirements:

• BS in CS, CE, EE, or related field with 7+ years industry experience (or MS/PhD with 5+ years)
• Deep CMake/C++ expertise or equivalent
• Strong understanding of dependency management and proficiency with either Conan or CPM
• Proficiency with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, cloud build clusters)
• Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash)
• 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
• Proficiency with CICD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Gitlab)
• Cloud Operations experience (Azure, AWS, GCP)
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus)
• Background in robotics, autonomy, or aerospace systems