Senior Staff Engineer, Customer Support (R5502)

Shield AI
United States
Remote

Who this role is best for

Candidates with technical support experience in defense software and strong troubleshooting skills will find this senior role in customer support for autonomy systems rewarding.

Best fit for

  • Senior engineers with a background in defense software and customer support experience
    — “7+ years of experience in technical customer support, fleet support, field support, software support, systems integration, applications engineering, technical operations, or a similar customer-facing technical role.
  • Individuals who can bridge customer needs with engineering teams through structured communication
    — “Strong written and verbal communication skills in customer-facing and cross-functional environments
  • Candidates experienced in converting recurring issues into actionable documentation
    — “Convert recurring support cases into knowledge-base articles, troubleshooting guides, known-issue records, intake improvements, diagnostic checklists, and product feedback.

Things to consider

  • A Secret DoD security clearance is required, which may delay the hiring process
    — “Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance as required by customers.
  • Candidates must be prepared to operate within strict export-control and security protocols
    — “Comfort operating within export-control, security, sensitive-data, customer-site, safety, commercial, and support-boundary requirements.

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience with autonomy software or defense systems in your resume and interviews
    — “Preferred qualifications include experience supporting autonomy software, robotics, unmanned systems, aviation, defense software, mission software, ground control software, SDKs, APIs, or edge-deployed systems.
  • Demonstrate your ability to structure ambiguous customer reports into actionable support cases
    — “Strong troubleshooting mindset and ability to turn ambiguous customer reports into structured, actionable support cases.
  • Showcase your experience with log parsing, telemetry, or diagnostic scripting tools
    — “Familiarity with Python, Bash, SQL, log parsing, telemetry review, or lightweight diagnostic scripting.
  • Emphasize your ability to manage ticket hygiene and escalation processes efficiently
    — “Ability to manage ticket hygiene, severity, ownership, customer updates, evidence requests, escalation paths, and support boundaries with discipline.
  • Demonstrate experience with support and knowledge-management systems like Jira or Confluence
    — “Experience with Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Zendesk, Confluence, or similar support and knowledge-management systems.
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · MediumAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Support intake quality
  • Issue reproduction
  • Knowledge-base articles
Typical background
Technical customer supportField support

Skills & requirements

Required

Technical SupportTriageIssue ResolutionCustomer CommunicationLog AnalysisRelease Support

Preferred

Product FeedbackRelease Readiness

Stack & domain

Technical SupportHivemind SoftwareAPILicensingDeploymentConfigurationIntegrationTechnical ValidationLog AnalysisTelemetryRelease ReadinessUpdate TroubleshootingCustomer OnboardingDeployment-to-sustainment HandoffsCustomer InteractionIssue TriageProblem SolvingDocumentationCollaborationTechnical CommunicationProject ManagementDefense TechAutonomy SoftwareAircraftSimulationSynthetic Reality

About the role

Original posting from Shield AI via Lever

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. 

What you'll do::

Serve as the first technical support point of contact for Hivemind software customers, partners, operators, maintainers, and internal field teams. 

Own support intake quality: issue description, mission impact, severity, customer environment, software version, configuration, asset context, logs, screenshots, telemetry, and reproduction steps where available. 

Triage Hivemind Enterprise software, API, licensing/provisioning, deployment, configuration, operator-workflow, and integration issues across fielded systems. 

Distinguish Hivemind software issues from customer configuration, unsupported environment, partner/OEM integration, network, hardware-adjacent, training, or feature-request issues. 

Route issues to the right owner across support operations, Field Deployment Engineering, Product Support Engineering, Sustainment Engineering, Licensing, Product, Program, and core engineering. 

Provide customer-safe updates that explain status, next steps, workarounds, expected evidence, and escalation path . 

Help reproduce or validate issues in lab, simulation, software test, or representative environments when appropriate. 

Analyze logs, telemetry, version state, configuration, release notes, and known issues to support triage and root-cause investigation. 

Convert recurring support cases into knowledge-base articles, troubleshooting guides, known-issue records, intake improvements, diagnostic checklists, and product feedback. 

Support release readiness, update troubleshooting, license/provisioning workflows, customer onboarding, and deployment-to-sustainment handoffs. 

Track support metrics and patterns that help the Sustainment team understand customer pain points, common failure modes, response quality, and supportability gaps. 

Projects you may work on::

  • Building the Hivemind support intake form and minimum evidence checklist for customer software issues. 
  • Creating a triage playbook for Hivemind Enterprise/API, license/provisioning, software deployment, configuration, and operator-workflow problems. 
  • Turning repeated field questions into customer-facing knowledge-base articles and internal escalation runbooks. 
  • Working with an FDE to convert a deployment issue into a complete support case with logs, versions, impact, workaround, owner, and closure criteria. 
  • Helping Product Support Engineering identify the top recurring supportability gaps in Hivemind software releases. 
  • Supporting a customer update or release rollout by tracking incoming issues, workarounds, known issues, and customer-safe status. 

Required qualifications::

  • 7+ years of experience in technical customer support, fleet support, field support, software support, systems integration, applications engineering, technical operations, or a similar customer-facing technical role. 
  • Strong troubleshooting mindset and ability to turn ambiguous customer reports into structured, actionable support cases. 
  • Working knowledge of Linux systems, logs, configuration files, networking basics, software versions, and diagnostic workflows. 
  • Ability to read and reason about C++ code. 
  • Ability to understand software behavior across customer workflows, APIs, deployment state, configuration, and integration context. 
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills in customer-facing and cross-functional environments, including calm communication during high-pressure support situations. 
  • Ability to manage ticket hygiene, severity, ownership, customer updates, evidence requests, escalation paths, and support boundaries with discipline. 
  • Ability to write concise support notes, troubleshooting guides, known-issue summaries, and customer-safe status updates. 
  • Comfort operating within export-control, security, sensitive-data, customer-site, safety, commercial, and support-boundary requirements. 
  • Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance as required by customers. 

Preferred qualifications::

  • Experience supporting autonomy software, robotics, unmanned systems, aviation, defense software, mission software, ground control software, SDKs, APIs, or edge-deployed systems. 
  • Experience supporting deployed software, fleet operations, operational readiness events, test campaigns, or customer-site deployments. 
  • Familiarity with Python, Bash, SQL, log parsing, telemetry review, or lightweight diagnostic scripting. 
  • Experience with Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Zendesk, Confluence, or similar support and knowledge-management systems. 
  • Experience with licensing, provisioning, release management, configuration baselines, offline/air-gapped environments, or customer update workflows. 
  • Experience using GenAI tools to accelerate troubleshooting, support summarization, documentation, knowledge capture, or support workflow automation. 
  • Active or prior security clearance. 

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.

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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.

Source: Shield AI careers (Lever)

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