Principal Engineer, Software
Principal Engineer on Shield AI's elite Special Projects team (Office of the CTO) designing and leading generative AI user experiences to accelerate autonomy development for Hivemind. Requires 15+ years building large production systems and 5+ years React/full-stack web development; operates in ambiguity with travel 1-3 times per quarter.
About the job
What you'll do
- Design and prototype generative AI experience focused on accelerating autonomy development
- Work closely with members of the Office of the CTO to crystallize the vision of the Hivemind product and its documentation
- Lead the user experience design of Hivemind Generative AI
- Work closely with the technical leads of Hivemind Commander (mission planning, command and control, air-ground communications) and Hivemind Design (configurations, test and evaluation, rehearsal, analysis) to enhance the user experience of their products
- Conduct user research to understand user personae and their needs
- Investigate competing products and their user experiences, synthesize findings to present to engineering and product leadership
Required qualifications
- 15+ years experience developing large, production quality software systems
- Excellent grasp of software development and coding principles with high productivity in a mainstream language (e.g. Typescript, C++, Go, Python, Rust, etc.)
- Strong knowledge of modern software engineering best practices; Experience with Git and code management tools; Good software hygiene regarding code documentation, unit testing, bug tracking
- 5+ years of experience with React/Node/Typescript/Javascript development
- 5+ years of experience with Web applications development ("Front-End" or "Full-stack")
- Deep understanding full-stack web development (Document-Object Model (DOM), browser APIs, standards, semantics, Websockets, HTTP Streaming and Server-Sent Events (SSE), Client and UI state management; best practises and strategies, as they apply to React-based rendering, Advanced SPA routing, URL-based state persistence, sharing mechanisms, Seamless content loading states and progressive rendering techniques)
- Multi-modal input handling (text, files, images, audio). Experience with client-side LLM Context Management
- Fluid intelligence that allows one to operate effectively in sometimes ambiguous conditions, while finding opportunities to drive technical efforts and force multiply
- Experience with Linux, Docker, and CI/CD environments
- Hands-on experience with a major cloud platform (Azure, GCP, AWS)
- This role requires travel to a Shield AI location 1-3 times per quarter
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with geospatial data and WebGL
- Experience with Playwright UI testing
- Experience with Electron (or similar)
- Building debugging/inspection UIs for generative AI systems
- Experience with user experience design video games
- Experience designing for “Low Code” or “No Code” systems
- Experience and/or comfort reading C++ and/or Python and/or Typescript
Skills
TypeScript, React, Node.js, JavaScript, C++, Go, Python, Rust, Linux, Docker, CI/CD, AWS, GCP, Azure, Webgl
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