The Senior Manager of Quality is responsible for establishing and leading all quality activities for a complex aerospace development program from prototype through production readiness. This role serves as the primary quality leader embedded within the program team and partners closely with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Flight Test, and Program Management to ensure products are designed, developed, tested, and transitioned to production with quality, reliability, and mission success as foundational objectives.
The Senior Manager of Quality will build and lead a multidisciplinary quality team while implementing scalable quality systems, risk management processes, problem-solving disciplines, and development quality practices appropriate for a rapidly growing aerospace and defense technology organization.
This position requires balancing speed of development with disciplined engineering rigor to support aggressive program schedules while ensuring compliance with customer, regulatory, and company requirements.
What you'll do:
- Serve as the quality leader for XBAT development.
- Establish quality strategy, objectives, and metrics aligned with program milestones.
- Integrate quality requirements into the product development lifecycle.
- Ensure quality considerations are incorporated during system architecture, design reviews, verification, validation, and qualification activities.
- Partner with Engineering leadership to identify and mitigate technical and programmatic risks.
- Drive a culture of proactive quality and continuous improvement throughout the program.
- Ensure quality requirements are appropriately captured in product definitions, specifications, and design documentation.
- Participate in design reviews, change control boards, and configuration management activities.
- Ensure full configuration and traceability for all material installed into prototype aircraft.
- Evaluate engineering changes for quality and production readiness impacts.
- Support requirements verification and validation planning.
- Drive design-for-manufacturing, design-for-quality, and design-for-reliability initiatives.
- Lead quality participation in program risk management activities.
- Establish and maintain FRACAS processes for development and flight test phases of the program.
- Facilitate root cause and corrective action investigations for design, manufacturing, supplier, and field failures.
- Support reliability growth planning and execution.
- Monitor defect trends, failure modes, and reliability metrics to identify systemic risks.
- Develop quality oversight strategies for laboratory, ground, and flight test activities.
- Ensure test results, anomalies, and nonconformances are appropriately documented and dispositioned.
- Support qualification and certification efforts.
- Establish processes for managing test escapes, failures, and corrective actions.
- Lead Material Review Board activities for development hardware.
- Establish scalable processes for nonconformance management.
- Drive root cause analysis using structured problem-solving methodologies.
- Ensure timely and effective corrective and preventive actions.
- Track effectiveness of corrective actions through closure.
- Partner with Manufacturing and Supply Chain teams to transition products from prototype to production.
- Define quality requirements for production readiness reviews.
- Support development of inspection plans, acceptance criteria, and control strategies.
- Ensure lessons learned from development are incorporated into production processes.
- Lead quality planning activities supporting low-rate initial production and rate increases.
- Develop and implement quality processes supporting aerospace development programs.
- Ensure compliance with AS9100, customer requirements, and internal procedures.
- Drive continuous improvement of development quality processes.
- Support internal and external audits as required.
- Establish scalable systems that support future production growth.
- Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing quality organization.
- Recruit and develop quality engineers, inspectors, and technicians.
- Establish clear objectives, priorities, and performance expectations.
- Promote a culture of accountability, technical excellence, and collaboration.
- Develop organizational capabilities to support future company growth.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Aerospace Engineering, or related technical discipline.
- 10+ years of experience in aerospace, defense, aviation, space, or other highly regulated industries.
- 5+ years of leadership experience managing technical quality organizations.
- Experience supporting complex product development programs from concept through production transition.
- Strong knowledge of quality systems, engineering development processes, and aerospace manufacturing.
- Experience leading root cause investigations and corrective action programs.
- Experience with risk management, reliability engineering, and failure analysis.
- Working knowledge of AS9100 quality management systems.
- Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior leadership.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience supporting UAV, aerospace, defense, aviation, autonomous systems, or advanced technology programs.
- Experience leading quality organizations during rapid company growth.
- Background in systems engineering, reliability engineering, or development engineering.
- Experience with flight test programs and qualification testing.
- ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (CMQ/OE), or equivalent certification.
- Familiarity with government defense programs and customer quality requirements.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Aerospace Engineering, or related technical discipline
- 10+ years of experience in aerospace, defense, aviation, space, or other highly regulated industries
- 5+ years of leadership experience managing technical quality organizations
- Experience supporting complex product development programs from concept through production transition
- Strong knowledge of quality systems, engineering development processes, and aerospace manufacturing
- Experience leading root cause investigations and corrective action programs
- Experience with risk management, reliability engineering, and failure analysis
- Working knowledge of AS9100 quality management systems
- Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams and senior leadership
- Experience supporting UAV, aerospace, defense, aviation, autonomous systems, or advanced technology programs
- Experience leading quality organizations during rapid company growth
- Background in systems engineering, reliability engineering, or development engineering
- Experience with flight test programs and qualification testing
- ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), CMQ/OE, or equivalent certification
- Familiarity with government defense programs and customer quality requirements
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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