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 a strong technical background in software engineering, excellent communication skills, and a passion for autonomy and robotics.

- Ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy and accountability in ambiguous environments while leading a team through ambiguity
- You can translate ambiguous customer needs into structured technical plans, team priorities, and measurable outcomes
- Experience in a customer-facing technical leadership role such as forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, or customer engineering
- You are comfortable making decisions, removing blockers, and helping a team drive progress under pressure
- 2+ years of people management or formal technical leadership experience for engineers
- Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal, coaching, and people leadership skills
- You enjoy leading technical teams while staying close to customers and field execution
- Strong technical background in software engineering, including the ability to review and debug complex systems and guide technical tradeoffs
- You enjoy working across engineering, product, and customer teams to improve both product outcomes and customer success
- Strong proficiency with modern C++ and experience with Python in a professional setting
- You are energized by coaching engineers through dynamic on-site challenges in real operational contexts
- 8+ years of relevant technical experience in software engineering, deployment engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, or forward deployed engineering
- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with sound judgment under pressure
- You have strong engineering fundamentals and can build credibility quickly with technical stakeholders, customers, and direct reports
- You are passionate about or have great interest in autonomy, robotics, aerospace, defense technology, or deploying advanced software in the field
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical 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