Principal Engineer, Software Architect (R4562)

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.