What you'll do:
- Own the mechanical architecture and technical direction for launch and recovery systems across development phases.
- Lead the design of electromechanical actuation systems, hydraulic assemblies, deployment mechanisms, and ruggedized structural systems.
- Drive system-level trade studies balancing performance, reliability, maintainability, weight, and cost.
- Define validation strategies, oversee structural, fatigue, and environmental testing plans, and ensure technical rigor.
- Serve as the mechanical authority in cross-functional integration efforts with avionics, propulsion, systems engineering, and manufacturing.
- Lead and present in major design reviews (PDR/CDR/TRR), ensuring readiness for production and field operations.
- Mentor engineers and elevate design standards across the team.
- Provide field support during flight campaigns and operational exercises, resolving system-level issues rapidly.
Required qualifications:
- 9–10+ years of experience in aerospace, ground systems, or heavy industrial mechanical design.
- Deep expertise in mechanism design, hydraulics, and ruggedized deployable systems.
- Advanced proficiency in CAD tools (SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, or similar).
- Strong experience in structural analysis, fatigue/lifecycle validation, and material selection for harsh environments.
- Experience leading subsystem architecture and driving system-level decisions.
- Experience working directly with suppliers and managing technical execution through fabrication and integration.
- Ability to operate effectively in fast-paced, evolving development programs.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience developing aircraft launch/recovery systems or similar deployable aerospace hardware.
- Strong familiarity with MIL-STD requirements and ruggedization best practices.
- Experience leading environmental and dynamic testing campaigns.
- Experience supporting production ramp and field deployment.
- Active or eligible for U.S. Secret Clearance.
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
Similar Jobs
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.
Gallery
%203.jpg)
Shield AI Teams
.jpg)
Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
