Staff Technical Program Manager – Autonomous Systems

About the role

Shield AI is a venture‑backed defense‑tech company developing AI‑powered autonomous systems. As a Staff Technical Program Manager you will lead the integrated execution of complex autonomy‑enabled UAS programs from requirements through deployment, coordinating multiple engineering disciplines to deliver verified capability to customers.

Key responsibilities

• Lead end‑to‑end execution of complex UAS, autonomy, and mission‑system programs, meeting technical, schedule, cost, quality and customer objectives.
• Own integrated program plans, including scope, milestones, schedules, critical path, resources, dependencies, risks, issues and change control.
• Partner with technical leads to ensure clear, measurable and traceable requirements, interfaces, verification plans and customer acceptance criteria.
• Drive cross‑functional system integration and test execution across hardware, software, autonomy, systems engineering, manufacturing, flight operations and cybersecurity.
• Facilitate trade studies, risk mitigations, recovery plans and leadership decisions to resolve technical and programmatic issues.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline (e.g., Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Physics).
• 8–12+ years of experience in systems engineering, technical program management or related roles within aerospace, defense, robotics or UAS environments.
• Proven ability to lead cross‑functional technical programs, manage requirements, verification, test planning and configuration baselines.
• Strong program‑management skills including integrated planning, risk and issue management, stakeholder communication and execution reporting.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD security clearance and willingness to travel up to 25%.

Required skills

• Jira
• Confluence
• Jira Align
• Microsoft Project
• Smartsheet
• Azure DevOps
• Jama
• Polarion
• DOORS
• Cameo