Director, Operations Analysis

About the role

Shield AI builds intelligent autonomy systems for the defense of service members and civilians, through its Hivemind Solutions organization. It is seeking a Director, Operations Analysis to lead a team that turns operational problems into quantitative insights shaping product strategy, engineering priorities, customer engagement and mission outcomes. The role combines autonomy, military operations, mission engineering, modeling and simulation, product strategy and customer-facing analysis.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and manage the Operations Analysis team, including hiring, mentoring, prioritization, performance management and technical direction.
• Build an operations analysis capability that informs product strategy, autonomy roadmap decisions, customer pursuits and program execution.
• Define and run mission analysis, campaign analysis, force-on-force studies, CONOPS evaluations and operational trade studies across Hivemind product domains.
• Partner with Product, Architecture, Systems Engineering, Business Development, Strategy and Program teams to turn operational problems into analytical studies and product recommendations.
• Develop analysis plans linking mission objectives, assumptions, threat environments, system performance and autonomy behaviors to measurable outcomes.
• Guide the use of tools such as AFSIM, NGTS, STK, MATLAB and Python, and set standards for model credibility, assumption tracking, sensitivity analysis and uncertainty characterization.
• Create executive-ready briefings and support customer engagements with technically grounded analysis.
• Work with engineering teams to improve model fidelity and help shape product requirements.
• Build reusable analysis frameworks, scenarios, vignettes and metrics, and represent the function in technical reviews, roadmap discussions and customer meetings.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, operations research, applied mathematics, computer science, physics, aerospace, systems engineering, data science or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in operations analysis, mission analysis, modeling and simulation, systems analysis, military analysis or campaign analysis.
• 5+ years leading teams, projects or technical analysis efforts.
• Experience using modeling and simulation to inform real product, system, program or operational decisions.
• Strong understanding of military operations, mission planning, force employment, kill chains, sensing, communications, autonomy, aircraft systems, weapons systems or related defense concepts.
• Experience working with engineering, product, business development, strategy or customer-facing teams, and strong technical communication skills.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Required skills

• Modeling and simulation tools: AFSIM, NGTS, STK, MATLAB, Python, Cameo, custom simulation environments (preferred)
• Analysis of autonomous systems, collaborative autonomy, uncrewed aircraft, electronic warfare, space systems, missile systems, maritime systems or air combat operations (preferred)
• Defense product development, advanced concepts, government capture efforts, experimentation, test planning and mission engineering (preferred)
• Model validation, verification, credibility assessment, sensitivity analysis, design of experiments and uncertainty quantification (preferred)