This position is heavily focused on design management and will be responsible for directing external architecture and engineering (A&E) firms throughout the entire project lifecycle. The successful candidate will lead stakeholder engagement, requirements development, programming, consultant management, design reviews, constructability reviews, and technical decision-making while ensuring designs align with operational objectives, budget constraints, schedule requirements, security requirements, and long-term facility strategies.
The ideal candidate thrives in environments where requirements are evolving and can effectively guide design teams through ambiguity to produce practical, constructible, and scalable solutions. Construction oversight is expected, but the primary focus of this role is ensuring design quality, design coordination, and successful project definition before construction begins.
The initial assignment will be the planning, design, and delivery of a prototype laboratory facility supporting advanced engineering and development activities.
What you'll do:
- Serve as the owner's lead representative for facility planning, programming, and design execution.
- Manage and direct architecture, engineering, specialty consultant, and design-build teams.
- Develop project requirements in partnership with engineering, manufacturing, operations, security, and executive stakeholders.
- Convert high-level business and operational objectives into actionable facility and infrastructure requirements.
- Lead programming efforts, space planning exercises, feasibility studies, and conceptual design development.
- Oversee design development from concept through construction documents.
- Establish and manage design schedules, consultant deliverables, review cycles, and design budgets.
- Lead design review meetings and drive resolution of technical issues, scope gaps, and coordination conflicts.
- Review architectural, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and specialty system designs.
- Evaluate designs for constructability, maintainability, operational efficiency, scalability, safety, and lifecycle performance.
- Ensure designs support manufacturing operations, engineering workflows, laboratory functions, airfield activities, and secure facility requirements.
- Coordinate internal stakeholder reviews and ensure project requirements are properly incorporated into design documents.
- Support permitting, entitlement, and regulatory approval efforts.
- Provide technical leadership during procurement, contractor selection, and project execution activities.
- Manage design-related RFIs, submittals, field modifications, and consultant support during construction.
- Utilize AutoCAD to review, coordinate, and comment on design documentation.
- Serve as the primary interface between internal stakeholders and external design consultants.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, or related technical field.
- Minimum 10 years of experience in design management, owner's representation, architecture, engineering, facilities development, or capital project delivery.
- Demonstrated experience managing architecture and engineering firms on complex facility projects.
- Strong understanding of facility planning, programming, design development, and construction documentation.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary design teams through all phases of project development.
- Ability to review and interpret architectural and engineering drawings, specifications, calculations, and technical documentation.
- Working knowledge of building systems, construction methods, codes, and industry best practices.
- Proficiency with AutoCAD.
- Experience supporting projects in active operational environments, including aviation or airfield facilities.
- Strong stakeholder management, communication, and decision-making skills.
- Ability to work effectively in situations with incomplete or evolving requirements.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. SECRET Security Clearance.
- Ability to lift 50 pounds or greater and perform site visits in active construction environments.
Preferred qualifications:
- Active U.S. SECRET Security Clearance or higher.
- Experience supporting advanced manufacturing, aerospace, defense, or technology environments.
- Experience planning and designing laboratories, prototype development spaces, engineering facilities, or manufacturing operations.
- Familiarity with ICD 705 requirements and secure facility design.
- Experience with SCIF planning, design, and accreditation processes.
- Experience delivering projects using design-build, progressive design-build, or fast-track delivery methods.
- Professional registration or certification such as PE, RA, PMP, CCM, LEED, or similar.
- Experience managing mission-critical or highly technical facilities.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, or related technical field.
- Minimum 10 years of experience in design management, owner's representation, architecture, engineering, facilities development, or capital project delivery.
- Demonstrated experience managing architecture and engineering firms on complex facility projects.
- Strong understanding of facility planning, programming, design development, and construction documentation.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary design teams through all phases of project development.
- Ability to review and interpret architectural and engineering drawings, specifications, calculations, and technical documentation.
- Working knowledge of building systems, construction methods, codes, and industry best practices.
- Proficiency with AutoCAD.
- Experience supporting projects in active operational environments, including aviation or airfield facilities.
- Strong stakeholder management, communication, and decision-making skills.
- Ability to work effectively in situations with incomplete or evolving requirements.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. SECRET Security Clearance.
- Ability to lift 50 pounds or greater and perform site visits in active construction environments.
- Active U.S. SECRET Security Clearance or higher.
- Experience supporting advanced manufacturing, aerospace, defense, or technology environments.
- Experience planning and designing laboratories, prototype development spaces, engineering facilities, or manufacturing operations.
- Familiarity with ICD 705 requirements and secure facility design.
- Experience with SCIF planning, design, and accreditation processes.
- Experience delivering projects using design-build, progressive design-build, or fast-track delivery methods.
- Professional registration or certification such as PE, RA, PMP, CCM, LEED, or similar.
- Experience managing mission-critical or highly technical facilities.
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes medical, dental, vision, and mental-health support, with company materials describing excellent coverage. Feedback suggests these offerings are comprehensive and consistently highlighted across official and third-party benefit lists.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full-time hires, with RSU structures and tools like Carta Tax intended to improve understanding and tax timing. Feedback suggests this broad-based ownership approach is a notable component of total rewards.
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Parental & Family Support — Benefits include paid parental leave, fertility support, childcare benefits, family medical leave, and onsite resources such as a Mother's Room. Feedback suggests the family-oriented offerings are more expansive than basic coverage.
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.
