Shield AI is seeking a Staff Electrical Test Engineering Specialist to build, modify, troubleshoot, and sustain the electrical test systems used to prove X-BAT hardware is reliable and mission ready. The Hardware Test Engineering team develops custom equipment for component- and system-level testing at ambient and simulated harsh environmental conditions.
This is a senior hands-on technical role focused on electrical execution and test-system readiness. You will perform complex PCBA and harness troubleshooting and rework, build and validate test equipment, design interface electronics and harnesses, support production and test operations, and lead improvements that make hardware easier to test, repair, and sustain. You will also mentor technicians and engineers, establish strong workmanship practices, and serve as a trusted escalation point for difficult electrical problems.
What success looks like:
- Keep critical test and production equipment safe, available, calibrated, and ready when programs need it.
- Resolve difficult electrical failures quickly and document root cause, repair, verification, and prevention clearly.
- Deliver high-quality electrical assemblies and improve team capability through strong workmanship, standard work, training, design feedback, and configuration control.
What you'll do:
- Build, integrate, validate, maintain, and repair electrical test systems that combine custom electronics, harnesses, instruments, controls, test computers, and mechanical fixtures.
- Perform benchtop PCBA testing and advanced troubleshooting using schematics, assembly drawings, test procedures, and laboratory instruments.
- Perform high-quality PCBA, cable, harness, connector, and electromechanical rework, including inspection and verification of completed repairs.
- Design and release interface boards, simple-to-moderate PCBs, harnesses, breakout assemblies, adapters, and electrical portions of test fixtures using appropriate CAD tools.
- Select components, connectors, wire, circuit protection, relays, switches, and instrumentation; document pinouts, bills of material, drawings, and assembly instructions.
- Support equipment checkout, calibration, preventive maintenance, configuration control, spares, and lifecycle issues such as obsolescence and recurring failures.
- Respond to emergent production- and test-floor issues, restore safe operation, communicate status, and ensure temporary actions are converted into durable corrective actions.
- Partner with electrical, mechanical, software, manufacturing, quality, and test engineers in design reviews; advocate for testability, serviceability, fault isolation, and simpler rework.
- Create and improve work instructions, checkout procedures, troubleshooting guides, inspection criteria, and safe-work practices for electrical equipment.
- Mentor technicians and engineers, lead difficult builds and repairs, and model strong ownership, workmanship, documentation, and laboratory discipline.
Required qualifications:
- 6+ years of hands-on electrical experience in aerospace, manufacturing, test, electronics, or a similarly rigorous hardware environment; equivalent military or trade experience is welcome.
- Demonstrated expertise in benchtop electrical testing, PCBA troubleshooting, and root-cause isolation using oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies, electronic loads, logic analyzers, and related equipment.
- Advanced experience performing PCBA and harness assembly, modification, and rework from controlled drawings and workmanship requirements.
- Ability to read, create, and review schematics, wiring diagrams, pinouts, assembly drawings, bills of material, and test procedures.
- Experience designing and maintaining electrical test equipment, interface electronics, harnesses, or production fixtures through release and sustained use.
- Working knowledge of analog and digital circuits, power distribution and protection, grounding, shielding, connectors, communications interfaces, and electrical safety.
- A record of resolving urgent production or laboratory issues while preserving safety, quality, traceability, and configuration control, communicating clearly, and mentoring others.
Preferred qualifications:
- Associate degree, technical certificate, military electronics training, or equivalent practical education; IPC workmanship certification or equivalent experience is valued.
- Experience with Altium, KiCad, OrCAD, Eagle, or comparable tools and with aircraft wiring, avionics interfaces, communications, sensors, power electronics, batteries, motors, or RF systems.
- Experience with environmental or qualification-test equipment, data-acquisition systems, programmable instruments, LabVIEW, TestStand, Python, Linux, or test computers.
- Experience applying ESD controls, electrical safe-work practices, calibration requirements, nonconformance processes, and formal configuration management.
- Eligibility to obtain a U.S. security clearance if required by the program.
Skills Required
- 6+ years of hands-on electrical experience in aerospace, manufacturing, test, electronics, or a similarly rigorous hardware environment
- Expertise in benchtop electrical testing, PCBA troubleshooting, and root-cause isolation using laboratory test equipment
- Advanced experience performing PCBA and harness assembly, modification, and rework from controlled drawings and workmanship requirements
- Ability to read, create, and review schematics, wiring diagrams, pinouts, assembly drawings, bills of material, and test procedures
- Experience designing and maintaining electrical test equipment, interface electronics, harnesses, or production fixtures through release and sustained use
- Working knowledge of analog and digital circuits, power distribution and protection, grounding, shielding, connectors, communications interfaces, and electrical safety
- Record of resolving urgent production or laboratory issues while preserving safety, quality, traceability, configuration control, and clear communication
- Associate degree, technical certificate, military electronics training, or equivalent practical education
- IPC workmanship certification or equivalent experience
- Experience with Altium, KiCad, OrCAD, Eagle, or comparable tools
- Experience with aircraft wiring, avionics interfaces, communications, sensors, power electronics, batteries, motors, or RF systems
- Experience with environmental or qualification-test equipment, data-acquisition systems, programmable instruments, LabVIEW, TestStand, Python, Linux, or test computers
- Experience applying ESD controls, electrical safe-work practices, calibration requirements, nonconformance processes, and formal configuration management
- Eligibility to obtain a U.S. security clearance if required by the program
What the Team is Saying
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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Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
