Manager of Autonomy Applications Engineering

Join Shield AI as the Manager of Autonomy Applications Engineering. In this highly technical, customer-facing leadership role, you will lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, ensuring excellent on-site customer support, deployment execution, and success in real-world environments. You will manage team performance, customer outcomes, and the flow of actionable field feedback back into the company. This position requires strong engineering fundamentals, experience in a customer-facing technical leadership role, and a passion for autonomy and robotics.

• Lead and manage a team of Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure successful customer deployments and technical support for the Hivemind SDK.
• Translate customer goals and program objectives into clear technical milestones, execution plans, and team priorities, driving accountability across the team.
• Collaborate with internal engineering, product, and program teams to improve customer readiness, product usability, deployment playbooks, and long-term customer success.
• You enjoy working across engineering, product, and customer teams to improve both product outcomes and customer success
• 2+ years of people management or formal technical leadership experience for engineers
• You have strong engineering fundamentals and can build credibility quickly with technical stakeholders, customers, and direct reports
• 8+ years of relevant technical experience in software engineering, deployment engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, or forward deployed engineering
• You can translate ambiguous customer needs into structured technical plans, team priorities, and measurable outcomes
• You are energized by coaching engineers through dynamic on-site challenges in real operational contexts
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with sound judgment under pressure
• Experience in a customer-facing technical leadership role such as forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, or customer engineering
• Strong proficiency with modern C++ and experience with Python in a professional setting
• Ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy and accountability in ambiguous environments while leading a team through ambiguity
• You are comfortable making decisions, removing blockers, and helping a team drive progress under pressure
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
• Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal, coaching, and people leadership skills
• Strong technical background in software engineering, including the ability to review and debug complex systems and guide technical tradeoffs
• You enjoy leading technical teams while staying close to customers and field execution
• You are passionate about or have great interest in autonomy, robotics, aerospace, defense technology, or deploying advanced software in the field
• 3+ years of experience working in a startup environment
• Experience managing or leading teams in the defense, robotics, aerospace, or autonomous systems industry
• Experience building or scaling a forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, or customer engineering function
• Experience gathering field feedback, influencing product direction based on customer needs, and establishing repeatable customer success playbooks