Senior Staff Engineer, Flight Control Actuation Systems - Ranger

About the role

Shield AI is hiring a Senior Staff Engineer for its X-BAT Engineering team in Seattle. You will take full technical ownership of flight control actuation system design for a Group 5 UAV fighter aircraft, defining requirements from first principles, resolving actuator and integration trades, and driving qualified flight-control actuation hardware from design through production support.

Key responsibilities

• Define, allocate and own the FCAS requirements and verification traceability matrix.
• Design and analyze control surface actuation systems, including sizing, dynamic response, bandwidth, redundancy and failure modes.
• Drive the control-law-actuator interface with Flight Controls and Vehicle Management Systems, including actuator dynamics modeling and control surface authority requirements.
• Drive actuator power source architecture and load analysis with EPS and hydraulic systems leads, and resolve heat-generation and thermal-load interfaces with thermal management.
• Coordinate control surface hinge moments and actuator reaction loads with structures.
• Define and run FCAS qualification test plans per MIL-HDBK-516 and MIL-STD-810, using test results to mature qualified hardware.
• Lead FCAS design-maturity and qualification-status reviews at SRR, PDR and CDR.

Required profile

• 8 to 15 years of experience in flight control actuation system design on fixed-wing aircraft.
• B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a related technical discipline.
• Proven track record sourcing COTS/custom aerospace components, driving suppliers to schedule, and building benchtop or vehicle-level test setups.
• Ability to self-direct, prioritize technical tasks without oversight and deliver functional hardware under tight timelines.
• Familiarity with MIL-HDBK-516 and MIL-STD-810, and experience supporting SRR, PDR and CDR on a DoD or fighter-class aircraft program.

Preferred qualifications

• Prior fighter or fighter-adjacent program experience, manned or unmanned.
• Unmanned or autonomous flight control experience, including redundancy philosophy differences from manned aircraft.
• Experience with EMA or EHA control surface actuators.
• Secret clearance eligibility.