Shield AI is actively seeking candidates with deep expertise in manufacturing and quality methodologies, paired with a relentless drive to enable supplier success and strengthen mission-critical operations.
Shield AI’s Supply Chain Quality team is responsible for global quality oversight across our supplier base. The team reduces supply-chain risk through supplier assessments and internal risk reviews, proactively drives supplier qualification and development activities.
In this role, you will lead a supplier quality team responsible for supplier qualification, development, performance management, and quality assurance across Shield AI’s aerospace and defense supply base. You will set supplier-quality priorities; manage team capacity, technical execution, and resource allocation; and develop high-performing quality leaders. The role also oversees supplier audits, nonconformance resolution, root-cause investigations, and hands on hardware dispositions.
You will evaluate supplier capability, quality performance, organizational risk, and resource needs to ensure purchased hardware and materials meet Shield AI engineering, customer, regulatory, and quality requirements. As an experienced aerospace quality leader, you will partner closely with Supply Chain, Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations, and Program teams to resolve complex supplier-quality issues, improve supplier capability, and reduce quality and delivery risk across the supply base.
What you'll do:
- Develop the supplier quality team responsible for supplier qualification, surveillance, performance management, and corrective-action activities across Shield AI’s global aerospace and defense supply base.
- Establish supplier-quality priorities, allocate resources, and translate functional objectives into staffing, workload, and execution plans that support product, program, and organizational needs.
- Develop Supplier Quality leaders and engineering personnel through coaching, performance management, succession planning, workforce development, and technical mentorship.
- Oversee supplier qualification, risk assessments, periodic performance reviews, supplier audits, source inspections, and approved-supplier status across complex aerospace hardware, commodities, and manufacturing processes.
- Ensure supplier requirements are effectively flowed down and that suppliers comply with applicable quality management system, engineering, customer, contractual, regulatory, and statutory requirements.
- Escalate significant supplier-quality risks and direct SCARs, supplier recovery efforts, and capability-improvement plans that could affect product quality, delivery, mission readiness, or program execution.
- Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations, Supply Chain, and Program teams to address supplier producibility, design-for-manufacturability, process capability, technical execution, and quality risks.
- Advance supplier-quality processes, business systems, data analytics, and continuous-improvement practices that strengthen supplier capability, product quality, delivery performance, and supply-base resilience.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, or another related technical discipline.
- At least 7 years of relevant experience, including 2–5 years of leadership or people-management experience with direct responsibility for Quality Engineering and/or Supplier Quality Engineering personnel.
- Strong working knowledge of AS9100 and/or ISO 9001 quality-management systems, as well as aerospace and defense supplier-quality requirements.
- Demonstrated proficiency in root-cause analysis and structured problem-solving methods, including 8D, 5 Whys, and fishbone analysis.
- Experience with supplier qualification, supplier development, PPAP, and First Article Inspection processes, including AS9102 requirements.
- Understanding of ITAR, EAR, DFARS, and other requirements applicable to aerospace and defense suppliers.
- Demonstrated people-leadership capability, including coaching, performance management, organizational development, and building high-performing technical teams.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration, executive communication, and supplier relationship-management skills.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook.
- Experience using ERP/MRP systems.
- Ability to travel to Shield AI manufacturing locations and supplier sites domestically and, as needed, internationally—up to approximately 20% of the time.
Preferred qualifications:
- ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE), Certified Quality Manager (CQM), or equivalent quality certification.
- Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification.
- Experience leading supplier-quality functions in a high-growth aerospace, defense, autonomy, robotics, or advanced-manufacturing environment.
- Experience supporting the production and qualification of complex electromechanical, electronic, precision-machined, composite, or avionics hardware.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, or a related technical discipline
- At least 7 years of relevant experience
- 2–5 years of leadership or people-management experience with direct responsibility for Quality Engineering or Supplier Quality Engineering personnel
- Working knowledge of AS9100 and/or ISO 9001 quality-management systems and aerospace and defense supplier-quality requirements
- Experience with root-cause analysis and structured problem-solving methods, including 8D, 5 Whys, and fishbone analysis
- Experience with supplier qualification, supplier development, PPAP, and First Article Inspection, including AS9102
- Understanding of ITAR, EAR, DFARS, and other aerospace and defense supplier requirements
- People-leadership capability, including coaching, performance management, organizational development, and technical team building
- Strong cross-functional collaboration, executive communication, and supplier relationship-management skills
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook
- Experience using ERP/MRP systems
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to approximately 20% of the time
- ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, Certified Quality Manager, or equivalent quality certification
- Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt certification
- Experience leading supplier-quality functions in aerospace, defense, autonomy, robotics, or advanced manufacturing
- Experience supporting production and qualification of complex electromechanical, electronic, precision-machined, composite, or avionics hardware
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with mental-health support and an EAP. Third-party benefits summaries also portray health coverage as a strong component of the package.
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Retirement Support — Offerings include a 401(k) with employer matching, cited on the careers page and independent benefits directories. Multiple sources indicate a match exists, though exact formulas have varied over time and warrant confirmation.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Company communications describe equity for all full-time hires and stock benefits as part of total rewards. Independent listings also note company equity/RSUs as a standard element.
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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Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
