Shield AI is seeking a Senior Manager, U.S. Facilities to lead facility operations across a rapidly expanding national portfolio. The role is accountable for the performance of U.S. sites after project turnover, including regional and site operations, maintenance and asset reliability, workplace services, vendor delivery, budgets, customer experience, and operational risk.
This is a hands-on national leadership role. The successful candidate will establish clear regional accountability, standardize service delivery without losing local responsiveness, develop internal talent, and build strong operating partnerships with Manufacturing, Engineering, Px, IT, EH&S, Security, Real Estate, Capital Delivery, Finance, and Procurement. The leader must be equally comfortable in an executive review, on a manufacturing floor, and in a facility incident response.
What you'll do:
- Own day-to-day and lifecycle performance across the U.S. facilities portfolio after formal project turnover.
- Establish and lead a regional operating model across West, Central, and East locations with clear site accountability and escalation paths.
- Develop annual site operating plans, service models, staffing approaches, and priorities based on site tier, mission criticality, hours of operation, and risk.
- Serve as the senior U.S. escalation point for facility reliability, workplace service, landlord, vendor, and site-continuity issues.
- Establish consistent asset registers, preventive-maintenance programs, work-order practices, critical-spares strategies, and lifecycle-risk visibility.
- Set and monitor service levels for critical systems, maintenance, employee requests, and workplace services.
- Identify infrastructure risks early and develop operating, maintenance, or capital recommendations with the appropriate functional owner.
- Drive root-cause analysis and durable corrective action for recurring failures, outages, backlogs, and service issues.
- Lead, coach, and develop regional and site Facilities teammates; establish clear roles, goals, and performance expectations.
- Manage IFM and specialist providers through scopes, service levels, scorecards, performance reviews, corrective actions, and renewal recommendations.
- Create a consistent workplace and customer-service experience while adapting delivery to manufacturing, engineering, office, hangar, and classified environments.
- Build trusted relationships with site leaders and business partners; translate business demand into clear operating plans and service requirements.
- Own the U.S. Facilities operating plan, budget inputs, forecast, variance explanations, and resource recommendations in partnership with the Global Facilities Leader and Finance.
- Maintain a U.S. site risk register, vendor-performance view, critical-action plan, and forward-looking capacity and lifecycle concerns.
- Use common KPIs and operating reviews to manage performance, prioritize resources, and escalate material decisions.
- Ensure vendors, purchase orders, invoices, contracts, and operating commitments follow Finance, Procurement, and delegation requirements.
- Provide operational requirements during site selection, design, and project delivery; participate in design reviews, commissioning, readiness, and move planning.
- Formally accept or reject project turnover against documented criteria, then lead post-occupancy stabilization and defect closure.
- Partner with EH&S and Security to implement standards, address findings, coordinate incidents, and maintain emergency and continuity readiness.
- Coordinate with Real Estate on lease obligations and capacity, while preserving Real Estate ownership of portfolio strategy and transactions.
NATIONAL AND REGIONAL OPERATIONS LEADERSHIP
RELIABILITY, MAINTENANCE, AND ASSET MANAGEMENT
PEOPLE, VENDORS, AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL GOVERNANCE
LIFECYCLE INTEGRATION AND RISK PARTNERSHIP
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in facilities management, engineering, operations, construction, business, or a related field.
- 12+ years of progressive experience in facilities management, integrated facilities management, corporate real estate operations, engineering operations, or a comparable field.
- 5+ years leading complex multi-site or regional operations, including direct people leadership and management of outsourced service providers.
- Experience operating facilities that support manufacturing, engineering, laboratories, aviation, critical infrastructure, secure environments, or other technically complex work.
- Demonstrated ownership of operating budgets, forecasts, contracts, vendor performance, service levels, and facility risk.
- Strong working knowledge of maintenance, building systems, preventive maintenance, work-order management, asset lifecycle, and incident response.
- Proven ability to build teams, standardize operations, and drive accountability across geographically dispersed locations.
- Executive-level communication and judgment, with the ability to translate technical and operational issues into clear business decisions.
- Ability to travel frequently across the United States and respond to time-sensitive facility priorities as required.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience in aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, autonomous systems, technology, or another high-growth regulated environment.
- Experience with SCIFs, classified environments, hangars, high-bay spaces, production facilities, or 24/7 critical operations.
- Experience establishing a regional operating model or scaling Facilities operations across a rapidly growing portfolio.
- Familiarity with CMMS/EAM, IWMS, service-management, building-automation, business-intelligence, and financial systems.
- CFM, FMP, CPMM, IFMA, engineering, project-management, or related professional credential.
- Experience leading major vendor transitions, IFM sourcing, commissioning, or project turnover.
- Current or prior security clearance, or experience operating in controlled-access environments.
What we're looking for:
The ideal candidate is a visible, credible operations leader who sets high standards and stays close to the work. This person can build structure at national scale while understanding that each site has different mission, technical, workforce, and risk requirements.
Success requires calm judgment, customer empathy, technical curiosity, financial discipline, and strong people leadership. The leader should earn trust, put the team first, move with rigor and speed, and make prudent use of internal and external resources.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in facilities management, engineering, operations, construction, business, or related field
- 12+ years progressive experience in facilities management, integrated facilities management, corporate real estate operations, engineering operations, or comparable field
- 5+ years leading complex multi-site or regional operations, including direct people leadership and management of outsourced service providers
- Experience operating facilities that support manufacturing, engineering, laboratories, aviation, critical infrastructure, secure environments, or other technically complex work
- Demonstrated ownership of operating budgets, forecasts, contracts, vendor performance, service levels, and facility risk
- Strong working knowledge of maintenance, building systems, preventive maintenance, work-order management, asset lifecycle, and incident response
- Proven ability to build teams, standardize operations, and drive accountability across geographically dispersed locations
- Executive-level communication and judgment, with ability to translate technical and operational issues into clear business decisions
- Ability to travel frequently across the United States and respond to time-sensitive facility priorities as required
- Experience in aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, autonomous systems, technology, or other high-growth regulated environment
- Experience with SCIFs, classified environments, hangars, high-bay spaces, production facilities, or 24/7 critical operations
- Experience establishing a regional operating model or scaling Facilities operations across a rapidly growing portfolio
- Familiarity with CMMS/EAM, IWMS, service-management, building-automation, business-intelligence, and financial systems
- CFM, FMP, CPMM, IFMA, engineering, project-management, or related professional credential
- Experience leading major vendor transitions, IFM sourcing, commissioning, or project turnover
- Current or prior security clearance, or experience operating in controlled-access environments
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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