Senior Software Engineer, Perception (R5420) at Shield AI
Dallas, TX
$163,200–$244,800
Jul 27, 2026
Dallas, TX
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role sits on Shield AI's Hivemind Solutions Perception team, building and deploying production-grade machine learning models — including vision, vision-language, and vision-language-action models — for autonomous aerial and ground systems. The engineer owns the full lifecycle from data pipelines and supervised fine-tuning through embedded hardware deployment and evaluation, bridging cutting-edge ML research with mission-ready operational software.
Senior level · 5+ years · San Diego, CA · Secret clearance · Full-time
Pay in the description: $163,200–$244,800
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Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $133,871 (middle half $95,474–$167,770). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 1, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The role blends ML research/modeling (15-2051) with substantial production software engineering and embedded deployment (15-1252); the primary day-to-day emphasis on model training, fine-tuning, and evaluation tips it toward Data Scientists, but the runner-up is Software Developers.
The experience requirement is stated as a degree-adjusted sliding scale (5 yrs / Bachelor's, 4 yrs / Master's, 2 yrs / PhD, or equivalent). Because equivalent experience is explicitly accepted in lieu of a degree, the degree requirement is set to None. The 5-year figure (the highest stated minimum) is used for total years of experience.
PyTorch and TensorFlow are listed together as 'such as' examples of ML frameworks — they are interchangeable alternatives for the same requirement rather than two distinct hard gates; they are captured as a single requirement with alternatives.
The posting does not specify a city beyond Shield AI's multi-location footprint; San Diego, CA is used as the primary CBSA based on Shield AI's known headquarters.
The candidate must be able to obtain a Secret clearance; an active clearance is not required at hire.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): vision-language-action models.
Requires a Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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