Shield AI is seeking a mission-focused District Manager, Latin America (LATAM) to lead market development, revenue growth, and customer adoption of Shield AI’s autonomy software, unmanned aircraft systems, and simulation technologies.
This senior, quota-carrying leader will own the LATAM go-to-market strategy, pipeline, bookings, forecasts, strategic accounts, and customer engagement. The District Manager will build senior relationships across government, defense, security, public safety, and aviation customers; translate operational needs into funded opportunities; and lead complex sales efforts from market development through contract award and expansion.
The role will focus on Shield AI’s priority LATAM countries while selectively developing broader regional opportunities. This is a remote position based in Latin America, with Colombia or Mexico preferred. The candidate must reside in-region and be able to travel up to 50% across priority countries, customer sites, partner locations, and regional events.
What you'll do:
- Own and execute Shield AI’s LATAM go-to-market strategy, revenue plan, bookings target, pipeline health, forecast accuracy, and strategic-account performance.
- Develop country and account plans for priority markets, including target customers, programs, acquisition pathways, partner strategy, competitive positioning, and revenue milestones.
- Build executive relationships with military, government, acquisition, operational, aviation, and public-safety stakeholders.
- Lead the full opportunity lifecycle, including account planning, customer discovery, requirements shaping, capture strategy, proposal development, negotiation, award, and expansion.
- Build a qualified pipeline and prioritize internal resources, executive engagement, travel, and partner investment toward the highest-value opportunities.
- Convert demonstrations, pilots, and evaluations into funded programs, fielded deployments, and follow-on business.
- Lead cross-functional teams across product, engineering, program management, capture, contracts, finance, legal, and export compliance.
- Develop and manage strategic channel partners, systems integrators, distributors, representatives, and industrial partners to improve market access and in-country execution.
- Ensure disciplined CRM hygiene, forecasting, executive reporting, and compliance with applicable procurement, export-control, anti-corruption, and third-party requirements.
- Represent Shield AI in senior customer meetings, demonstrations, industry events, and government working sessions across the region.
Required Experience & Capabilities:
- Bachelor’s degree required, with 12+ years of sales, business development, capture, or related experience in aerospace, defense, UAS, aviation, ISR, security technology, or comparable mission-focused technology markets.
- 5+ years of commercial or business-development leadership experience, including a record of building and developing teams, partner networks, or regional organizations.
- Demonstrated success delivering revenue growth in complex government, defense, aerospace, public-safety, border-security, or national-security markets.
- Proven experience selling complex hardware, aviation platforms, integrated systems, autonomous capabilities, UAS, ISR solutions, or comparable mission systems with long sales cycles and multi-stakeholder buying processes.
- Ability to independently build pipeline, shape requirements, lead capture and account strategy, negotiate complex agreements, and close high-value public-sector opportunities.
- Extensive experience with LATAM government, defense, security, public-safety, aviation, or acquisition stakeholders, including knowledge of regional procurement processes, budget cycles, tenders, local partnership models, and long sales cycles.
- Experience working with prime contractors, systems integrators, distributors, channel partners, and local industrial partners to support capture and delivery.
- Strong knowledge of aviation and UAS concepts of operation, platform capabilities, customer missions, and competitive dynamics, particularly for Group 2–5 UAS, ISR, border security, maritime security, and expeditionary applications.
- Strong executive communication, negotiation, forecasting, cross-functional leadership, and strategic account-planning skills.
- Professional fluency in Spanish and English, with the ability to meet applicable export-control, travel, background-screening, customer-access, anti-corruption, and third-party compliance requirements.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Professional fluency in Portuguese.
- Experience selling Group 3–5 UAS, tactical ISR aircraft, aviation platforms, autonomy-enabled systems, AI-enabled software, command-and-control capabilities, or other advanced defense and security technologies in Latin America.
- Ability to translate aircraft performance, payload options, autonomy features, and technical specifications into mission value and customer outcomes.
- Experience advancing aviation, ISR, or unmanned-systems opportunities from demonstration or pilot through procurement, fielding, sustainment, and expansion.
- Familiarity with LATAM defense and public-sector procurement, tender, direct commercial sales, government-to-government, and defense-trade pathways.
- Experience operating in export-controlled or security-sensitive environments, managing third-party due diligence and anti-corruption requirements, or supporting operational military users.
- Experience scaling regional sales, capture, partner-management, or market-development organizations, with established relationships in Shield AI’s priority LATAM countries.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree
- 12+ years of sales, business development, capture, or related experience in aerospace, defense, UAS, aviation, ISR, security technology, or comparable mission-focused technology markets
- 5+ years of commercial or business-development leadership experience
- Experience building and developing teams, partner networks, or regional organizations
- Demonstrated revenue growth in complex government, defense, aerospace, public-safety, border-security, or national-security markets
- Experience selling complex hardware, aviation platforms, integrated systems, autonomous capabilities, UAS, ISR solutions, or comparable mission systems
- Ability to build pipeline, shape requirements, lead capture and account strategy, negotiate complex agreements, and close public-sector opportunities
- Extensive experience with LATAM government, defense, security, public-safety, aviation, or acquisition stakeholders
- Knowledge of regional procurement processes, budget cycles, tenders, local partnership models, and long sales cycles
- Experience working with prime contractors, systems integrators, distributors, channel partners, and local industrial partners
- Knowledge of aviation and UAS concepts of operation, platform capabilities, customer missions, and competitive dynamics
- Professional fluency in Spanish and English
- Ability to meet export-control, travel, background-screening, customer-access, anti-corruption, and third-party compliance requirements
- Professional fluency in Portuguese
- Experience selling Group 3-5 UAS, tactical ISR aircraft, aviation platforms, autonomy-enabled systems, AI-enabled software, or advanced defense and security technologies in Latin America
- Ability to translate aircraft performance, payload options, autonomy features, and technical specifications into mission value and customer outcomes
- Experience advancing aviation, ISR, or unmanned-systems opportunities from demonstration or pilot through procurement, fielding, sustainment, and expansion
- Familiarity with LATAM defense and public-sector procurement, tender, direct commercial sales, government-to-government, and defense-trade pathways
- Experience operating in export-controlled or security-sensitive environments and managing third-party due diligence and anti-corruption requirements
- Experience scaling regional sales, capture, partner-management, or market-development organizations
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as excellent, with dental/vision and mental‑health support, and ancillary protections like life and disability appearing in benefit summaries. The breadth and perceived affordability of coverage are highlighted as a standout component of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is featured alongside enhanced maternity benefits, fertility and childcare support, and onsite resources such as a Mother’s Room. These elements are positioned as competitive and above the minimal baseline for the company’s stage.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full‑time hires, with RSUs, double‑trigger tax timing, and tools to model scenarios (e.g., through Carta Tax). Communications also reference a transition from options to RSUs, reinforcing access and maturity of ownership programs.
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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