Senior Fuel Systems Engineer - Autonomous Aircraft

Shield; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 219,000; Full time

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a Staff Fuel System Engineer to lead the design, development, integration, and fielding of a next-generation autonomous aircraft system. This role requires a balance of technical rigor, rapid decision-making, and hands-on engineering to translate concepts into operational capability.

You will serve as the Responsible Engineer for the aircraft fuel system, owning technical execution from requirements and architecture through design, procurement, integration, build, test,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related engineering field.
• 7+ years of experience in aerospace fuel systems, propulsion, or related aircraft system development with ownership of complex hardware.
• Strong thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and both compressible and incompressible flow knowledge.
• Experience with fuel system hardware integration, testing, and failure investigations.
• Proficiency in Python or similar tools for analysis, data reduction, and model correlation.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the Responsible Engineer for the aircraft fuel system from concept to deployment.
• Design, size, and integrate tanks, pumps, valves, plumbing, venting, pressurization, filtration, and sensing hardware.
• Analyze fuel system performance across the operating envelope and during transients and extreme conditions.
• Lead design reviews, supplier engagements and hardware procurement.ST improve performance, mass, thermal, reliability, safety, and mission fulfilment.
• Plan and execute component, subsystem, and vehicle-level testing with instrumentation and data acquisition.
• Analyze ground and flight data to validate performance, quantify margins, and drive improvements.
• Lead failure investigations using analysis, inspection, testing, and data to develop corrective actions.
• Collaborate with design engineers, propulsion, controls, airframe, manufacturing, and flight teams to build and iterate flight hardware.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline

Tools

Python

GFSSP

REFPROP

CFD

ANSYS

FEA

Job description

Shield AI is seeking a Staff Fuel System Engineer to lead the design, development, integration, and fielding of a next-generation autonomous aircraft system. This role requires a balance of technical rigor, rapid decision-making, and hands-on engineering to translate concepts into operational capability.

You will serve as the Responsible Engineer for the aircraft fuel system, owning technical execution from requirements and architecture through design, procurement, integration, build, test,