Lead the security strategy behind advanced, mission-critical technology. In this role, you’ll drive secure and scalable solutions, collaborate across technical and business teams, and help ensure complex systems are protected, compliant, and ready for real-world operations.
What you'll do:
- Hold overall accountability for RMF execution across all Shield AI classified systems under JSIG, DAAPM, and NIST SP 800-53, driving toward continuous authorization as the goal state.
- Maintain a single authoritative view of authorization posture: ATO and IATT status, expiration dates, conditions, open POA&M items, and assessment findings across every system and site.
- Own the accreditation roadmap and commit dates with program management, and manage the dependencies — facility, network, tooling, and personnel — that determine whether those dates hold.
- Represent Shield AI as the senior security authority with Authorizing Officials, SCAs, government program security officers, and DCSA or cognizant SAPCO representatives.
- Drive reciprocity and inheritance strategy so controls implemented once are reused across programs and sites instead of re-litigated in each package.
- Approve risk acceptance recommendations, deviations, and mitigation strategies before they go to the government, and escalate residual risk to Shield AI leadership with a clear position.
- Define the enterprise continuous monitoring strategy — vulnerability scanning, STIG and SRG compliance, audit review, and configuration drift detection — and hold the team to a reportable cadence.
- Standardize package templates, control evidence libraries, hardening baselines, and inheritance documentation so new enclaves start from an accredited pattern.
- Invest in automation — infrastructure as code, scripted STIG application, scan and evidence pipelines — to make compliance repeatable rather than heroic.
- Select and own the security compliance toolchain (eMASS or Xacta, ACAS/Nessus, SCAP, SIEM) including budget, licensing, and government-directed tooling requirements.
- Define metrics that reflect real security posture and report them to Federal Systems and company leadership.
- Work with IT, network, platform, and product security engineers so security architecture is designed in rather than retrofitted before an assessment.
- Partner with Industrial Security, Facilities, and Contracts on new facility and enclave stand-ups from concept through ATO, including accredited network extensions between facilities.
- Advise program managers and engineering leadership on accreditation timelines and the security consequences of architecture, schedule, and staffing decisions.
- Own incident response leadership on classified systems: containment, spillage and contamination response, government reporting, and after-action corrective plans.
- Ensure the classified user population is trained, access is least-privilege and auditable, and data transfer and media control actions follow program guidance.
Own the authorization portfolio
Build the capability, not just the packages
Partner across the company
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field
- 8+ years of experience in cybersecurity engineering, defense systems, mission systems, or military aerospace programs
- Experience leading cybersecurity activities for complex integrated systems or defense platforms
- Strong knowledge of RMF, STIGs, system hardening, network security, secure architectures, and vulnerability management processes
- Experience working across hardware, software, networking, and mission system integration environments
- Active Top Secret Clearance with SCI Eligibility
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience supporting military aircraft, UAV, mission systems, or tactical communication platforms
- Familiarity with resilient system architectures, zero trust principles, cross-domain solutions, and contested environment operations
- Experience with MBSE methodologies and tools such as Cameo Systems Modeler
- Background supporting cybersecurity test events, airworthiness, or platform accreditation activities
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
- 8+ years of experience in cybersecurity engineering, defense systems, mission systems, or military aerospace programs
- Experience leading cybersecurity activities for complex integrated systems or defense platforms
- Strong knowledge of RMF, STIGs, system hardening, network security, secure architectures, and vulnerability management processes
- Experience working across hardware, software, networking, and mission system integration environments
- Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility
- Experience supporting military aircraft, UAV, mission systems, or tactical communication platforms
- Familiarity with resilient system architectures, zero trust principles, cross-domain solutions, and contested environment operations
- Experience with MBSE methodologies and tools such as Cameo Systems Modeler
- Background supporting cybersecurity test events, airworthiness, or platform accreditation activities
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
Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
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