Manager, Environmental Control Systems & Thermal Engineering

About the role

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing aircraft and simulation technologies. As Manager, Environmental Control Systems & Thermal, you will lead and develop a team of individual contributors responsible for environmental control systems, aircraft thermal management and associated fluid and heat-transfer hardware on the X-BAT program, while supporting these capabilities across Group 5 programs. You will balance people leadership, technical judgment and hands-on guidance in a fast-moving aircraft development environment.

Key responsibilities

• Manage, mentor and develop individual contributors, set goals, give feedback and build a high-trust, high-standard team.
• Set priorities, ownership, staffing and execution cadence for X-BAT and Group 5 work, and remove blockers and manage dependencies.
• Guide ECS and thermal architecture, trades and design reviews across thermal environments, cooling, airflow, ducting, heat exchangers, fluid circuits and related hardware.
• Set expectations for requirements, reviews, verification, risk management, configuration control and design release through flight-ready hardware.
• Resolve interfaces with structures, propulsion, avionics, EWIS, payloads, manufacturing, systems engineering and test teams.
• Lead component, qualification, ground and flight test planning, and ensure data, anomaly resolution and corrective actions support hardware delivery.
• Set expectations for components, specifications, SOWs, supplier reviews, prototype builds and acceptance.
• Engage in first-principles analysis and root-cause investigations, and represent the team in program and engineering reviews.

Required profile

• US citizen with an active Secret or higher clearance.
• 8+ years in aerospace environmental control systems, thermal engineering, fluid systems or comparable aircraft mechanical systems development.
• Direct experience managing and developing individual contributors.
• B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a related technical discipline.
• Deep understanding of thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics and aircraft thermal management.
• Ability to guide architecture, requirements, analysis, design, integration and verification through hardware delivery.

Preferred qualifications

• Managing engineers on UAV, autonomous aircraft, fighter or tactical aircraft programs.
• Experience with Group 5 aircraft, aircraft-level thermal management, ECS or integrated fluid and thermal systems.
• Hands-on experience with thermal and fluid testing, instrumentation, data acquisition, model correlation or flight-test troubleshooting.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-516, RTCA DO-160 and SAE AIR or ARP standards.
• Experience hiring, onboarding and scaling a small engineering team in a rapid R&D or production environment.