{"id":130969,"url":"https://alion.io/job/shield-ai-principal-engineer-software-architect-r4562","title":"Principal Engineer, Software Architect (R4562)","company":{"id":50,"name":"Shield AI","domain":"shield.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/shield-ai","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":74,"open_postings":100,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.86,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":65,"computed_at":"2026-11-10T06:52:35Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Dallas, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":215566,"max":323350,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":323350},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-02-13T20:44:08Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-02-13","last_verified_at":"2026-11-10T09:30:01Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":269,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":269},"description":"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.\nWHAT YOU’LL DO:\nDefine and evolve the system-wide software architecture for XBAT, spanning airborne vehicle, ground station, and autonomy layers. \nTranslate safety and security goals into technical requirements, standards, and design patterns that guide engineers across multiple software teams. \nEnsure architecture supports safety-critical and cyber-relevant workflows. This includes formalizing architecture decisions, traceability, and compliance pathways appropriate for advanced airborne systems. \nDrive cross-team alignment on APIs, data flows, fault handling, verification strategy, and risk management so mission, vehicle, and autonomy components integrate cleanly. \nPartner with engineering leadership, system architects, and validation teams to balance innovation speed with rigorous assurance practices. \nSet technical direction for long-term scalability: modularity, maintainability, testability, and support for future capability growth or certification needs. \nMentor senior engineers and architects, raising the bar for design rigor, documentation quality, and architectural judgment across the organization. \nProduce and maintain architecture artifacts: high-level system diagrams, component interfaces, data models, risk analyses, and design rationales. \nLead technical reviews for major features, changes, or integration points; ensure alignment with architectural standards and safety/security constraints. \nDefine architecture governance: decision records, change control processes, quality gates, and collaboration flows among development, verification, and operations. \nCollaborate with systems, hardware, and avionics teams to manage boundaries, timing, resource allocation, and failure modes that affect overall aircraft and mission performance. \nDrive technology evaluation and roadmap: select or validate frameworks, middleware, and tooling that meet performance, assurance, and cyber-hardening needs. \nSupport external or internal readiness evaluations: provide architectural evidence, participate in reviews, and help the program articulate compliance posture as requirements evolve. \nAdvocate for continuous improvement in architecture practice: metrics, architecture reviews, knowledge sharing, and onboarding for new team members. \nREQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:\nDeep expertise in software architecture for complex, multi-domain systems-ideally aerospace, defense, autonomous systems, or similarly safety-critical fields. \nProven track record designing and delivering production software that must satisfy stringent safety, security, or mission assurance requirements. \nStrong systems thinking: able to navigate tradeoffs across performance, latency, reliability, testability, and certification or compliance considerations. \nExcellent written and verbal communication; able to convey architecture vision and rationale to engineers, program leads, and stakeholders. \nExperience driving architecture adoption and discipline across multiple teams, not just authoring designs in isolation. \nBachelor’s or advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or a closely related field, or equivalent practical experience. \nAbility to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance desired.\nPREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:\nFamiliarity with aerospace software assurance frameworks or standards that guide high-assurance airborne software development. \nExperience working on or integrating autonomy, mission planning, or AI-enabled software into real-world systems. \nStrong understanding of cyber hardening and secure design practices for distributed or networked vehicle systems and ground infrastructure. \nPrior leadership or mentor role with responsibility for building and scaling architecture practices and design culture in a fast-moving engineering organization. \nExperience dealing with constrained platforms: real-time requirements, limited compute, or avionics-style integration challenges. \nHands-on experience in VTOL or other advanced aircraft programs, or in programs that require austere operations, long-range operations, or resilient autonomy. \nExposure to end-to-end product lifecycle from concept through flight test or operational deployment. \nPractical knowledge of modern software tooling that supports traceability, CI/CD, automated verification, static analysis, or high-assurance pipelines. \nComfort working in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment where requirements can evolve quickly and architecture must adapt without losing rigor.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4842,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Military Drones","Defense Manufacturing","Defense AI","Drone AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-02-13T20:44:08Z"},{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T22:46:00Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 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