Senior Staff Engineer, Discrete Planning (R5440)

    San Diego, California && United States
    Full-Time
    Senior (7+ yrs)
    Engineering & Development
    Posted on July 24, 2026

    Job Description:

    The Discrete Planning Group is a part of the Autonomy Team for Hivemind Enterprise Product. The group is an agile set of engineers focused on researching and developing state-of-the-art algorithms that drive intelligent and confidence-inspiring flight behaviors while accounting for an uncertain and dynamic world. As a member of the group, you will work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, discrete optimization, and motion planning. You will architect and write high-quality software for core systems, set standards for software engineering, refine technical requirements, drive strategic technical improvements, and mentor other engineers.

    What you'll do:
  1. Research, design, and implement state-of-the-art algorithms for optimal task allocation, scheduling and temporal sequencing of heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles (land, air, other).
  2. Solidify and improve existing C++ based mission planning software applicable across disparate vehicle types and compute platforms.
  3. Work with our engineers, program managers, and product managers to define a technical roadmap for future autonomy solutions and SDK offerings.
  4. Projects you might work on:
  5. Breakdown a mission into assignable tasks based on agent capabilities such as navigating in contested and denied environments and adapting to mission changes in real-time.
  6. Construct feasible and optimal action plans for distributed teams of autonomous vehicles that also minimize human operator workload.
  7. Full software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation of complex multi-agent missions.
  8. Required qualifications:
  9. Typically requires a PhD with graduate work in Optimization or Operations Research. Master’s degree with 4 or more years of work in the same areas.
  10. Expert in Integer or Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Constraint Programming, Convex Optimization, Multi-Objective-Optimization and using established solvers such as Gurobi, Google-OR, CPLEX etc.
  11. Significant experience in implementing algorithms in C++ and using debuggers such as gdb to troubleshoot execution within a multi-threaded environment.
  12. Ways to stand out:
  13. Past publications on Optimization(google scholar profile).
  14. Company:  Shield AI

    Defense company developing AI pilots for aircraft systems.
    501-1000 employees
    AI & Machine Learning
    HQ: United States