Shield AI is seeking a Staff Aerostructures Loads Engineer to define, analyze, and validate the loads environments that drive structural design for Project Ranger. This role will develop critical vehicle and component loads analyses across flight, ground, transport, handling, and test conditions, enabling safe, efficient, and flight ready structural designs.
The ideal candidate brings strong aircraft loads fundamentals, sound engineering judgment, and practical experience applying analytical results to structural design, test, and certification activities. This engineer will work closely with structures, flight sciences, systems engineering, aerodynamics, flight controls, propulsion, manufacturing, and flight test teams to ensure the airframe is designed, validated, and operated within defined structural limits.
What you'll do:
- Develop air vehicle and component level loads analyses for primary and secondary structures.
- Create and maintain loads models, free body diagrams, load paths, load cases, design envelopes, and critical load conditions that inform structural sizing, design decisions, and verification planning.
- Partner with Aerodynamics, Flight Controls, Mass Properties, Propulsion, and Systems Engineering to define external loads, inertial loads, aerodynamic loads, actuator loads, interface loads, and vehicle operating conditions.
- Deliver clear loads documentation, including design load reports, interface control loads, critical condition summaries, assumptions, margins, and recommendations for use by structures, test, and certification stakeholders.
- Support ground and flight test planning, instrumentation definition, correlation activities, structural test execution, and post test data analysis to validate models and refine structural loads predictions.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- 8 or more years of experience performing air vehicle, rotorcraft, uncrewed aircraft, launch vehicle, automotive, or other complex vehicle loads analysis.
- Demonstrated experience developing loads models and performing static, dynamic, maneuver, gust, landing, ground, handling, transport, or test loads analyses for vehicle structures.
- Strong understanding of structural mechanics, aircraft dynamics, aerodynamics, inertia relief, load paths, free body diagrams, structural sizing inputs, and finite element model interface loads.
- Proficiency with MATLAB, Python, Nastran, Patran, FEMAP, HyperMesh, or comparable loads analysis, data analysis, and finite element tools.
Preferred qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering with emphasis in structural dynamics, aeroelasticity, aircraft loads, flight mechanics, or a related field.
- Experience supporting uncrewed aircraft, fixed wing aircraft, rotorcraft, defense, space, or other aerospace vehicle development programs.
- Experience developing or correlating loads models using flight test, ground test, structural test, strain gauge, pressure, acceleration, or other instrumentation data.
- Familiarity with aeroelasticity, flutter, dynamic response, vibration, fatigue, durability, damage tolerance, or nonlinear structural analysis methods.
- Experience working in multidisciplinary product development environments with structural design, stress analysis, flight sciences, manufacturing, systems engineering, and flight test teams.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- 8 or more years of experience performing vehicle loads analysis for aircraft, rotorcraft, uncrewed aircraft, launch vehicles, automotive, or other complex vehicles.
- Experience developing loads models and performing static, dynamic, maneuver, gust, landing, ground, handling, transport, or test loads analyses.
- Strong understanding of structural mechanics, aircraft dynamics, aerodynamics, inertia relief, load paths, free-body diagrams, structural sizing inputs, and finite element model interface loads.
- Proficiency with MATLAB, Python, Nastran, Patran, FEMAP, HyperMesh, or comparable tools.
- Master's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering emphasizing structural dynamics, aeroelasticity, aircraft loads, flight mechanics, or a related field.
- Experience supporting uncrewed aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft, rotorcraft, defense, space, or other aerospace vehicle development programs.
- Experience developing or correlating loads models using flight, ground, or structural test instrumentation data.
- Familiarity with aeroelasticity, flutter, dynamic response, vibration, fatigue, durability, damage tolerance, or nonlinear structural analysis methods.
- Experience working in multidisciplinary product development environments.
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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