Air Vehicle Lead, Chief Engineer

About the role

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing autonomous aircraft, including V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. As Air Vehicle Lead for a new aircraft program, you will be the senior technical leader responsible for the design, development, integration and maturation of the air vehicle, owning its technical integrity and leading a multidisciplinary engineering effort from requirements and architecture through detailed design, build, ground test, flight test and production. This is a highly technical, hands-on leadership role.

Key responsibilities

• Own the air vehicle: set overall vehicle architecture, technical performance, integration and design integrity throughout the development lifecycle.
• Provide technical direction across aerodynamics, flight sciences, structures, mechanical systems, propulsion, avionics, electrical systems and flight controls.
• Lead first-principles engineering trades across performance, weight, range, payload, cost, reliability, manufacturability, schedule and technical risk.
• Drive the aircraft from requirements and conceptual design through preliminary and critical design, hardware release, build, integration, ground test and flight test, resolving issues that threaten program execution.
• Stay hands-on: take part in design reviews, technical problem solving, root-cause investigations, test activities and critical design decisions.
• Identify and close the technical problems most likely to prevent mission success, balancing analysis, test, schedule and speed.
• Create a rapid development environment using prototypes, ground testing, flight testing and real-world data to retire risk and continuously improve the aircraft.
• Ensure interfaces between structures, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, payloads, software and other systems are understood, controlled and integrated.
• Partner with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality and Operations so the aircraft can move from development to repeatable production.
• Provide technical leadership for critical suppliers and externally developed systems.
• Mentor engineers and technical leaders and raise the overall technical capability of the program.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or a related engineering discipline; Master's degree or higher preferred.
• 15+ years of relevant aircraft development experience, including significant technical leadership on complex aerospace programs.
• Demonstrated experience leading an air vehicle or major aircraft system through multiple phases of the development lifecycle, ideally including design, build, integration, ground test, flight test and production.
• Ability to make difficult technical decisions with incomplete information and to drive teams toward solutions at speed.
• Experience partnering with manufacturing and suppliers to bring complex aerospace hardware into production.
• Ability to obtain and maintain the security clearance required for the program.

Required skills

• Broad technical understanding of aircraft development and system integration, including aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, flight controls, avionics and mechanical systems.
• Understanding of aircraft design principles, verification and validation, and the link between engineering decisions and aircraft performance.
• Hands-on technical leadership with a system-level perspective.