Senior Manager, Engineering - Hivemind Reasoning (R6291)

Shield AI is hiring a Senior Manager, Engineering - Hivemind Reasoning (R6291) in San Mateo, United States. It pays $290k-$430k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.

AI in this role

Lead an engineering team building AI reasoning models for unmanned autonomous defense systems.

ml-opsmachine-learningteam-leadershipautonomous-systemsreasoning-modelsmlops

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and 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:

Lead the future of physical AI in defense by building the reasoning models for unmanned autonomous systems, across aerial, maritime, land, and space domains.

We are looking for a leader with not only the deep technical expertise or the abilities to build a world-class team, but also someone with the strong conviction that AI will protect service members and civilians. This role is responsible for building and leading a team that researches and designs models, establishes training pipelines and rigorous evaluations, and ensures mission effectiveness at the edge under real-world constraints. These models must support individual vehicles and coordinated teams of hundreds of agents, while meeting the constraints of operating at the edge in contested environments.

In this role, you’ll partner closely with world-class teams in perception, MLOps, large-scale simulation, and inference to deliver capabilities as part of the broader Hivemind Enterprise team.

What success looks like: your team’s reasoning models deliver exceptional outcomes for baseline platforms and missions, which can then be rapidly and confidently adapted to new platforms and missions by our solutions engineering organisation.

How we rate this

Senior Manager, Engineering - Hivemind Reasoning (R6291) at Shield AI rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Key facts

Senior Manager, Engineering - Hivemind Reasoning (R6291) is an open job at Shield AI.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $290k-$430k a year.
The role is based in San Mateo, California.
The job was posted on October 15, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Shield AI. Apply on Shield AI

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

ML OpsMachine learningTeam LeadershipAutonomous SystemsReasoning ModelsMLOps

Questions you could be asked

How do you monitor a model once it's live, and how do you know it needs retraining?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where team leadership was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where autonomous systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where reasoning models was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: ML Ops, Machine learning, Team Leadership, Autonomous Systems, and Reasoning Models. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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