What you'll do:
- Build the Company’s Strategic Financial Model
- --Own and build the fully integrated 3‑statement model based on unit economics, KPIs, and industry benchmarks
- --Lead the long‑range plan (LRP) and multi‑scenario modeling
- --Tie operational drivers—production ramps, R&D, contract timing, GTM—to financial outcomes
- --Build valuation frameworks, sensitivities, and investor‑grade outputs
- --Maintain a forward‑looking view on risks, opportunities, and strategic drivers
- Digitize & Scale the Modeling Infrastructure:
- --Partner with data engineering and systems teams to evolve models from Excel to modern cloud-based planning tools
- --Build modular, scalable structures where Excel is used only for high‑value analysis
- --Use analytics and automation to reduce manual modeling and increase clarity
- Analyze the Business Like an Investor:
- --Benchmark peers in defense, autonomy, robotics, aerospace, and industrial tech
- --Build competitor profiles, KPI benchmarks, and market analyses
- --Develop a POV on unit economics, efficiency, scale, and profitability
- --Support M&A modeling, valuation, and diligence
- --Provide clear, strategic insights—not just numbers
- Lead Cash Flow & Liquidity Modeling (with Corporate Finance):
- --Build rolling cash forecasts across working capital, inventory, milestone payments, and CapEx
- --Model hardware cycles, government payment timing, and program cash curves
- --Identify liquidity risks early and shape capital allocation decisions
- Partner Across the Company:
- --Work directly with the VP FP&A, CFO, and CEO on forward-looking financial questions
- --Translate engineering, program, and operations plans into financial impacts
- --Connect short-term forecasting to the LRP
- --Present insights that drive decisions and accelerate execution
Who you are:
- Analytical athlete with elite attention to detail
- Clear, structured thinker with strong modeling intuition
- Fast, accurate, and comfortable under pressure
- Curious and forward-looking—always asking “why?”
- Strong communicator who elevates decision quality
- Mission-driven and energized by complex, meaningful problems
Required qualifications:
- 8+ years in investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, equity research, or elite financial services
- Best‑in‑class Excel modeler: integrated 3‑statement models, valuations, sensitivities, unit economics, scenario analysis
- Experience analyzing defense, aerospace, autonomy, robotics, industrial tech, or HW/SW companies
- Strong command of unit economics and driver-based forecasting
- Experience building LRPs and enterprise valuation frameworks
- Deep cash flow and liquidity modeling expertise
- High proficiency with financial statements and GAAP mechanics
- Systems mindset—comfortable partnering with data/systems teams
- Thrives in fast-moving, high-growth environments
Preferred qualifications:
- Familiarity with government contract economics and milestone-based revenue
- M&A experience: modeling, valuation, diligence
- Exposure to manufacturing scale, supply chain, and hardware production cycles
- Data fluency: dashboards, financial databases, or BI tools
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
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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.
