Senior Engineering Manager Autonomy & Perception

$195,361 - $293,042/Yr

Shield Ai - Campbell, CA

Full-time - Senior

Campbell, CA

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

About the position

The Senior Engineering Manager for Autonomy & Perception at Hivemind will lead a team of autonomy developers in designing, developing, integrating, testing, and deploying advanced AI Pilot systems. This role combines technical leadership with people management, focusing on delivering high-quality autonomy software while fostering a culture of excellence and continuous improvement within the team.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of 5 to 7 autonomy developers, balancing leadership and hands-on development.
• Develop production-quality autonomy software in C++ for military platforms, ensuring robustness, efficiency, and scalability.
• Provide technical leadership in the design and architecture of key perception framework components.
• Drive product roadmap execution by leading feature decomposition, capacity planning, and agile development processes.
• Collaborate closely with the product team to clarify and prioritize product requirements.
• Provide clear guidance on scope of work and set achievable goals for the development team.
• Optimize capacity allocation based on business needs to maximize team efficiency and impact.
• Establish a commitment-driven environment for reliable feature delivery that exceeds customer expectations.
• Partner with talent acquisition throughout the hiring process and nurture a culture of excellence through performance reviews and continuous feedback.

Requirements

• Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree; or 9 years and a master's degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Proven experience as a people manager overseeing a team of C++ developers.
• High proficiency in modern C++ and design patterns with a strong record in a core perception discipline (e.g., state estimation, sensor fusion, object tracking, SLAM) or another autonomy field.
• Experience across the full lifecycle of perception software development, testing, and deployment to edge computing environments.
• Familiarity with CI pipelines and automated testing frameworks for C++.
• Strong proficiency with Linux operating systems.

Nice-to-haves

• Previous experience delivering autonomy software (C++) to DoD customers.
• Familiarity with navigational sensors (IMU, GPS, barometers, magnetometers).
• Experience with GPS-denied navigation technologies.
• Understanding of EO/IR sensors and object detection algorithms.
• Professional experience deploying state estimation algorithms (KF, EKF, UKF).

Benefits

• Competitive salary ranging from $195,361 to $293,042 per year.
• Opportunities for career advancement and skill development.
• Engagement in performance reviews and employee recognition programs.