Temporary Python Programmer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Founded in 2015, 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 and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. 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:
Are you a passionate and innovative engineer looking to help develop state-of-the-art AI and robotics products? Are you eager to make a positive difference in the world? Do you want to work alongside mission-driven and values-focused teammates? Shield AI is just the place for you!
The Hivemind Integration & Test team is committed to ensuring our autonomy platform delivers a seamless developer experience and enables customers to build world-class autonomous systems. We focus on integrating, validating, and continuously improving the Hivemind ecosystem-spanning autonomy behaviors, sensor processing, multi-agent coordination, ground-control systems, and embedded platforms. Our mission is to ensure that autonomy developers can efficiently build, test, and deploy autonomous applications that meet real-world mission objectives.
In this role, you will lead a team responsible for integrating, validating, and scaling the Hivemind autonomy platform across simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and operational environments. You will serve as both a technical leader and people manager-guiding engineers in the development of robust integration and test capabilities while remaining actively engaged in hands-on system integration, validation, and customer-focused workflows.
As a power user of the Hivemind SDK, you will develop a deep understanding of its capabilities, identify gaps from a customer perspective, and drive improvements across the platform. You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, and Program teams to integrate new autonomy capabilities, evaluate feature completeness, and ensure customers can efficiently build, test, and deploy mission-ready autonomous systems. This position bridges technical leadership, engineering execution, and real-world autonomy applications-ensuring our platform empowers customers to build reliable, world-class autonomous systems.
What you'll do:

• Mentor, and develop a team of engineers focused on software integration, system validation, and developer experience.
• Establish team priorities, drive execution, and foster a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Actively contribute to system integration, validation, and debugging activities and develop deep expertise in our autonomy stack.
• Guide the architecture and implementation of integration frameworks, deployment workflows, and configuration management tools that streamline validation across Software-in-the-Loop (SIL), Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), and flight environments.
• Review system logs, telemetry, and rosbag data to diagnose integration defects
• Lead cross-functional investigations, establish corrective actions, and create tooling that accelerates debugging and issue resolution.
• Ensure integrated capabilities meet product requirements and interface specifications.

Required qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 7 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree in CS, Comp Eng, Robotics, or a related field; or 6 years and a master's degree; or 4 years with a PhD.
• Proficiency in programming languages including Python or C++.
• Experience with autonomous systems or middleware.
• Demonstrated experience designing integration workflows, communicating system dependencies, and triaging and reporting integration defects across subsystem boundaries.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a proven track record of delivering high-quality software solutions.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of collaborating effectively across various teams and presenting to customers or technical leadership.
• Experience leading software integration engineers and owning integration roadmaps and release schedules

Preferred qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience building complex systems with a strong understanding of software architecture and design principles.
• Experience with hardware or embedded systems.
• Expert knowledge of Python.
• Experience with ROS.
• Experience with white box testing
• Familiarity with networking, operating-systems, and radio communications.
• Experience supporting customer applications

$160,000 - $240,000 a year
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Full-time regular employee offer package:
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
Temporary employee offer package:
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.