Deputy Chief Engineer — Autonomous Combat Aircraft

Shield; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking an experienced Deputy Chief Engineer for X-BAT to lead and coordinate the design, development, integration, test, and maturation of a next-generation autonomous combat air vehicle. The role emphasizes technical depth, systems thinking, and the ability to steer multidisciplinary teams through uncertainty.

The candidate will balance performance, safety, cost, and manufacturability while reporting to the Air Vehicle Lead and ensuring mature design reviews and verifications

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 12+ years of progressive experience developing complex aircraft, military aerospace systems, autonomous aircraft, or similarly integrated aerospace products.
• Demonstrated technical leadership on an aircraft-development program, preferably as a Chief Engineer, Deputy Chief Engineer, Air Vehicle Lead, Systems Engineering Lead, Integrated Product Team Lead, or equivalent.
• Broad understanding of aircraft design and integration across multiple engineering disciplines, with the technical judgment to identify critical interfaces and system-level consequences.
• Experience taking an aircraft or similarly complex aerospace system through multiple lifecycle stages, such as requirements development, preliminary and critical design, fabrication, integration, ground test, flight test, qualification, or production.
• Experience establishing and managing system requirements, technical baselines, interface definitions, design reviews, verification plans, and engineering risks.
• Demonstrated ability to make high-quality technical decisions with incomplete information and under aggressive program timelines.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues and recommendations to executive and customer audiences.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams in a fast-paced development environment.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical deputy to the X-BAT Air Vehicle Lead, acting on their behalf when necessary and helping translate program objectives into clear engineering priorities.
• Maintain the integrity of the air vehicle’s technical baseline, including system requirements, architecture, interfaces, configuration, performance, verification, and airworthiness evidence.
• Lead the day-to-day integration of engineering activities across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, mechanical systems, avionics, electrical systems, flight controls, software, autonomy, manufacturing, and test.
• Drive aircraft-level technical decisions and trade studies, ensuring decisions are grounded in first-principles analysis and consider downstream effects on performance, safety, cost, schedule, producibility, maintainability, and operations.
• Establish and maintain a disciplined technical-risk process, ensuring risks are identified early, assigned accountable owners, supported by mitigation plans, and retired through analysis or test.
• Lead major technical and design reviews, ensuring the aircraft is sufficiently mature to progress through fabrication, ground test, flight test, qualification, and production.
• Partner with Program Management to align technical scope with schedule, budget, staffing, supplier, and customer commitments.
• Work closely with Manufacturing and Supply Chain to ensure designs are producible, scalable, and supported by a resilient supplier base.
• Partner with Test and Flight Operations to define verification strategies, ground- and flight-test objectives, instrumentation requirements, test readiness criteria, and issue-resolution plans.
• Lead rapid root-cause investigations and corrective actions for complex aircraft-level problems identified during integration, ground test, flight test, production, or operations.
• Ensure technical decisions and engineering changes are documented, communicated, and reflected in the controlled product baseline.
• Develop the technical leadership capabilities of engineering managers, functional leads, integrated product team leads, and senior individual contributors.
• Communicate aircraft status, technical risks, decision recommendations, and recovery plans clearly to program leadership, executives, customers, and external partners.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, urgency, ownership, intellectual honesty, and constructive challenge.

Skills

Technical leadership

Multidisciplinary team leadership

Systems engineering

Communication skills

Clearance eligibility

Education

Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical or systems engineering

Master’s degree in related discipline

Job description

Shield AI is seeking an experienced Deputy Chief Engineer for X-BAT to lead and coordinate the design, development, integration, test, and maturation of a next-generation autonomous combat air vehicle. The role emphasizes technical depth, systems thinking, and the ability to steer multidisciplinary teams through uncertainty.

The candidate will balance performance, safety, cost, and manufacturability while reporting to the Air Vehicle Lead and ensuring mature design reviews and verifications