The International Market Intelligence Analyst develops and maintains consistent, decision-ready budget and competitive information for international autonomous combat aircraft markets. The role supports GTM leads and Mission Success with current evidence on funding, programs, competitors, acquisition pathways, and industrial expectations.
This is a cumulative knowledge role that brings together two related analytic disciplines. The analyst maintains structured international budget and competitive data, applies established methods to heterogeneous public and commercial sources, and produces recurring country and regional reads for priority markets.
Regional and country GTM leads own their customers, captures, and win strategies. This role supports those leads with the budget and competitive evidence needed to shape pursuits and inform capture strategies. It does not own Price-to-Win, final pricing posture, customer engagement, or execution of customer-funded programs.
What you'll do:
- Maintain international budget coverage. Track partner-nation defense budgets, relevant program lines, and multi-year procurement and sustainment plans for priority autonomous combat aircraft markets.
- Maintain international competitive coverage. Keep competitor profiles, competition and award trackers, product comparisons, and teaming and industrial-partnership maps current for assigned countries and regions.
- Develop integrated country and regional reads. Combine budget and competitive data into decision-ready products covering funding, timing, competitors, acquisition path, and industrial expectations for GTM and Mission Success teams.
- Work from primary sources. Collect and extract data from defense budgets, white papers, parliamentary and legislative records, procurement notices, and reputable open-source reporting, supplemented by commercial market data when available.
- Curate the knowledge base. Maintain a structured, cumulative, and queryable international budget and competitive knowledge base using AI-enabled tools for ingestion, organization, and upkeep.
- Publish on cadence and on demand. Deliver recurring updates and respond to scoped rapid-turn requests supporting pursuits, campaign reviews, proposal inputs, and leadership decisions.
- Track market developments. Monitor programs, competitions, awards, teaming, industrial partnerships, offsets, and co-production developments in assigned markets and elevate material changes.
- Support the international campaign system. Provide reliable inputs that help country and regional leads shape pursuits, identify intelligence gaps, and establish collection priorities.
- Support a culture of accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Decision rights and interfaces:
This role is accountable for the quality, currency, and consistency of assigned international budget and competitive data; recurring country and regional products; maintenance of the international knowledge base; and timely response to scoped analytic requests.
Regional, country, and opportunity GTM leads are accountable for customer relationships, in-country strategy, partner and industrial development, win strategy, pricing posture, proposal content, and the bid/no-bid recommendation for their pursuits.
The designated Price-to-Win lead and responsible GTM and pricing leaders are accountable for PTW positions and final pricing posture. This role provides relevant international budget and competitive evidence but does not perform or own PTW.
The U.S. Market Intelligence & Price-to-Win role is accountable for the U.S. market picture and coordinates common methods and knowledge standards with this role.
Government Relations, Export, Legal, and Contracts are accountable for interagency and embassy engagement, export authorizations, disclosure determinations, legal positions, and contracting terms.
Engineering and Product are accountable for technical solution definition, configuration decisions, and performance commitments.
External customer engagement by this role is in support of, and at the invitation of, the responsible GTM lead.
Required qualifications:
- 3–6 years of relevant experience in international defense budget analysis, competitive intelligence, market research, business development analysis, or closely related work in defense or aerospace.
- Working knowledge of international defense budgets and public budget documentation, with the ability to extract useful signal from incomplete and heterogeneous sources.
- Experience conducting competitive or market analysis, including competitor profiles, market assessments, or product comparisons.
- Working familiarity with international defense acquisition and pursuit dependencies, including FMS, DCS, or hybrid pathways and associated approval, disclosure, and exportability considerations.
- Strong research, data-handling, analytic writing, and briefing skills, with the ability to produce clear products for senior and non-specialist audiences.
- Ability to manage recurring production while responding to short-notice, well-scoped internal requests.
- Experience using AI tools to organize and maintain structured, reusable knowledge resources.
- Bachelor's degree in international affairs, security studies, economics, finance, political science, business, engineering, or a related field.
- Demonstrated alignment with Shield AI core values: Do What Honor Dictates, Live as a Servant Leader, Pursue Excellence.
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally as required and to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience supporting defense business development, capture, or strategy.
- Exposure to large UAV, unmanned, or autonomous aircraft programs.
- Familiarity with offset, co-production, or industrial-participation frameworks in one or more priority markets.
- Regional expertise or language skills relevant to Europe, the Middle East, or Asia-Pacific.
- Familiarity with foreign disclosure, security cooperation, embassy or country-team coordination, or interagency advocacy.
Success in this role:
- Country and regional GTM leads and Mission Success have current, reliable, and consistent budget and competitive information for priority autonomous combat aircraft markets.
- Country and regional products are delivered on cadence, use traceable sources, and identify material gaps or uncertainty.
- Budget and competitive context is present early enough to help shape pursuits and inform capture strategies rather than being appended after key decisions.
- The international knowledge base grows in coverage and quality quarter over quarter, and recurring questions take less time to answer.
- Material funding shifts, competitor moves, and industrial dynamics in assigned markets are identified and elevated in time for the campaign system to respond.
Skills Required
- 3-6 years of relevant experience in international defense budget analysis, competitive intelligence, market research, business development analysis, or related defense or aerospace work
- Working knowledge of international defense budgets and public budget documentation
- Experience conducting competitive or market analysis, including competitor profiles, market assessments, or product comparisons
- Working familiarity with international defense acquisition and pursuit dependencies, including FMS, DCS, or hybrid pathways
- Strong research, data-handling, analytic writing, and briefing skills
- Ability to manage recurring production and short-notice internal requests
- Experience using AI tools to organize and maintain structured, reusable knowledge resources
- Bachelor's degree in international affairs, security studies, economics, finance, political science, business, engineering, or a related field
- Alignment with Shield AI core values
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally as required
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
- Experience supporting defense business development, capture, or strategy
- Exposure to large UAV, unmanned, or autonomous aircraft programs
- Familiarity with offset, co-production, or industrial-participation frameworks
- Regional expertise or language skills relevant to Europe, the Middle East, or Asia-Pacific
- Familiarity with foreign disclosure, security cooperation, embassy or country-team coordination, or interagency advocacy
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with mental-health support and an EAP. Third-party benefits summaries also portray health coverage as a strong component of the package.
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Retirement Support — Offerings include a 401(k) with employer matching, cited on the careers page and independent benefits directories. Multiple sources indicate a match exists, though exact formulas have varied over time and warrant confirmation.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Company communications describe equity for all full-time hires and stock benefits as part of total rewards. Independent listings also note company equity/RSUs as a standard element.
Shield AI Insights
What We Do
At Shield AI, you won't wait years to see your work reach the field. You'll build hardware and software that operates in the real world right now, in the hands of the people who depend on it. Hivemind, our AI pilot, has been flying since 2018. It has flown more than 30 platforms, including an F-16, and it now sits under a U.S. Air Force production contract for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. When you write code or shape a system here, you contribute to technology with a proven flight record and a clear production future. V-BAT flies intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions with an operational record that stretches from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific. It delivers eyes where they matter most, in the most demanding conditions on earth. The teams behind it watch their work get tested where the stakes are real. X-BAT takes its first flight this year. It's an AI-piloted fighter that needs no runway, built to operate where traditional aircraft can't. Join now and you help shape a program at its earliest, most formative stage. That's the kind of ground-floor work that defines a career. Do the most impactful work of your life, on problems that matter. Autonomy at this level asks a lot of you. You'll take on problems in perception, planning, and control that few teams anywhere are equipped to solve. You'll work across disciplines, from aerospace and robotics to machine learning and systems engineering, alongside people who hold themselves to an exacting standard and expect the same from you. Our mission is clear: protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. That purpose runs through every decision, every design review, and every deployment. It's why the work here carries a weight you can feel. Ready to join our mission? Explore our open roles and find where you fit.
Why Work With Us
Founded in 2015 by a former Navy SEAL, Shield AI builds AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft. Veterans aren't an afterthought here, they're at every level. It's why the work carries weight: AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft flying real missions, from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, protecting service members and civilians.
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Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
