What you'll do:
Develop and execute a comprehensive USMC capture strategy integrating all SAI products.
Identify, qualify, and prioritize strategic opportunities aligned with USMC enterprise priorities.
Establish and maintain trusted relationships with senior leaders across USMC — including key stakeholders within HQMC, the relevant Navy acquisition offices, the Deputy Commandant -Aviation, and other critical and influential Marine Corps headquarters.
Serve as Shield AI’s principal interface for enterprise-level USMC engagements, ensuring a unified message and coordinated strategy.
Anticipate and interpret policy, budget, and technology priorities emerging from HQMC translating them into actionable capture strategies and investment focus areas while supporting the teams' execution of service-focused capture.
Shape and influence Marine Corps concepts, roadmaps, and acquisition approaches that define future autonomy, AI, and unmanned systems adoption.
The Strategic Capture Director/Senior Director - USMC will lead the development and execution of Shield AI’s long-term business development and capture strategy focused on the United States Marine Corps.
This individual will drive Shield AI’s engagement and alignment with enterprise-level defense priorities, modernization initiatives, and Marine Corps transformation efforts — shaping strategic growth opportunities that advance the company’s impact across the joint force.
Measures of success (First 6–12 Months):
- Established relationships with relevant operational commands, requirements developers, and acquisition offices
- Create/update existing capture plan and qualify programmed resource streams for Shield AI products in line with operational force needs
- Influence the production of future requirements and solicitations favoring Shield AI product offerings
Required qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in business development, strategy, or capture within the Department of War ecosystem, with a focus on USMC enterprise-level engagements.
- Deep understanding of USMC organizational structures, acquisition systems, and decision-making processes at the Secretariat and Joint levels.
- Demonstrated success leading major captures ($50M+ value) or shaping large-scale defense initiatives through the full business development lifecycle.
- Proven ability to influence and communicate effectively with senior USMC stakeholders.
- Strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills, with demonstrated ability to collaborate across technical, operational, and policy teams.
- Active Secret clearance (Top Secret preferred).
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with emerging technologies in autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI), command and control (C2), unmanned systems (UAS), or ISR.
- Prior military, government, or industry experience supporting USMC efforts.
- Advanced degree in business, public policy, engineering, or a related field.
Skills Required
- 10+ years of experience in business development, strategy, or capture within the Department of War ecosystem, with a focus on USMC enterprise-level engagements.
- Deep understanding of USMC organizational structures, acquisition systems, and decision-making processes at the Secretariat and Joint levels.
- Demonstrated success leading major captures ($50M+ value) or shaping large-scale defense initiatives through the full business development lifecycle.
- Proven ability to influence and communicate effectively with senior USMC stakeholders.
- Strong leadership, communication, and analytical skills, with demonstrated ability to collaborate across technical, operational, and policy teams.
- Active Secret clearance (Top Secret preferred).
- Experience with emerging technologies in autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI), command and control (C2), unmanned systems (UAS), or ISR.
- Prior military, government, or industry experience supporting USMC efforts.
- Advanced degree in business, public policy, engineering, or a related field.
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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Shield AI Teams
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Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
