Staff Engineer, XBAT DevOps (R4542) (Dallas, TX)

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Job Description:

As a DevOps Engineer, you’ll own our CI/CD and automation stack — driving developer velocity, pipeline health, and large-scale test execution from single-agent runs to cluster-orchestrated mission scenarios. This is a hands-on IC role that removes bottlenecks, accelerates iteration, and ensures every engineer can test and ship with speed and rigor. 

What you'll do:

• Own and operate the CI/CD system across autonomy, embedded, and ground software.

• Improve developer velocity by reducing build/test cycle time and eliminating pipeline bottlenecks.

• Scale simulation test execution in CI — from containerized single-agent runs to orchestrated clusters.

• Manage infrastructure for builds and tests (Azure DevOps, Git, Artifactory, cloud build agents).

• Fully automate common tasks to create a self-service DevOps model allowing developers to be fully empowered. 

• 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 for CI/CD health and performance.

• Collaborate with the Developer Ops teams across Shield AI to introduce new technologies, best practices, and shared standards.

Required qualifications:

• BS in CS, CE, EE, or related field with 7+ years industry experience (or MS/PhD with 5+ years).

• Strong expertise in CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions).

• Proficiency with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, cloud build clusters).

• Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell).

• 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

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience building simulation or HIL-based test pipelines.

• CMake/C++ expertise or equivalent.

• Strong understanding of dependency management and proficiency with either Conan or CPM.

• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus).

• Background in robotics, autonomy, or aerospace systems.