Senior Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788)

Shield AI is hiring a Senior Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788) in San Diego, United States. It pays $160k-$250k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Shield AI.

Level's read on this job

Works on AI ●●●○ is how Level rates this software engineer role: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
The posting mentions C, software engineering and safety critical systems among its tools and skills.
Level classes it as a senior role.
Shield AI has 667 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Senior software engineer developing safety-critical Run-Time Assurance and autonomy infrastructure for defense and aerospace platforms.

software-engineeringsafety-critical-systemsrun-time-assuranceuav-autonomyreal-time-systems

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:

Shield AI is seeking an engineer to help design, develop, and integrate a safety critical Run-Time Assurance (RTA) product. The Hivemind Foundations team is responsible for a suite of core products and capabilities that brings resilient autonomy and intelligence to aircraft and other platforms operating in complex environments. The RTA product that the Foundations team develops is a real-time safety capability that helps keep autonomy safe, predictable, and effective at the edge.

As a member of the Foundations team, you will be responsible for C++ software development, integration of reusable safety capabilities into production systems, defining clean interfaces and tests, and turn safety-critical designs into reliable software that can fly, including support for X-BAT, Shield AI's flagship Group 5 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) UAV.

How we rate this

Senior Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788) at Shield AI rates 65 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.

●●●● 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. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Senior Safety-Critical Software Engineer (R5788) is an open job at Shield AI.
Level rates this role AI Level 3 of 4: Works on AI.
The listed salary is $160k-$250k a year.
The role is based in San Diego, California.
The job was posted on September 26, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
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

Software EngineeringSafety Critical SystemsRun Time AssuranceUav AutonomyReal Time SystemsC

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Python AWS LLM Java AI agents Kubernetes

Pay

This job starts at: $160k
Typical software engineer job: $168k

This posting starts 5% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where safety critical systems was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where run time assurance was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where uav autonomy was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where real time systems was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Software Engineering, Safety Critical Systems, Run Time Assurance, Uav Autonomy, and Real Time Systems. 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.
Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.

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