Air Vehicle Lead — Autonomous Aircraft Architect

Shield AI; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Bonus

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI seeks an Air Vehicle Lead to drive the architecture, development, integration, and maturation of autonomous aircraft. You will own the technical integrity of the air vehicle and lead the cross-disciplinary engineering effort through design, build, ground and flight tests, and production.

This hands-on leadership role requires deep expertise across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, and manufacturing, with a focus on rapid, robust, and cost-effective

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related discipline; Master's preferred.
• 15+ years of aircraft development experience with strong technical leadership on complex programs.
• Experience leading air vehicle development through multiple lifecycle phases (design through production).
• Broad multi-discipline understanding: aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, flight controls, avionics, mechanical systems, vehicle integration.

Responsibilities

• Own the Air Vehicle: lead architecture, performance, integration, and design integrity.
• Lead multidisciplinary engineering across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, avionics, flight controls.
• Drive system-level trades balancing performance, weight, range, cost, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Lead design execution from requirements to production, with clear priorities and issue resolution.
• Stay hands-on: participate in reviews, problem solving, testing, and critical decisions.
• Own technical risk and drive closure with appropriate rigor across analysis and testing.
• Build-test-learn: create rapid development using prototypes and flight data to reduce risk.
• Drive integration to ensure interfaces across subsystems are understood and controlled.
• Design for production: collaborate with manufacturing and supply chain to enable repeatable production.
• Lead suppliers and partners to meet aircraft-level requirements and program objectives.

Skills

Air vehicle leadership

System integration

First-principles thinking

Mentorship

multidisciplinary collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering

Master's degree or higher preferred

Job description

Shield AI seeks an Air Vehicle Lead to drive the architecture, development, integration, and maturation of autonomous aircraft. You will own the technical integrity of the air vehicle and lead the cross-disciplinary engineering effort through design, build, ground and flight tests, and production.

This hands-on leadership role requires deep expertise across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, and manufacturing, with a focus on rapid, robust, and cost-effective