As a Mass Properties Engineer for Ranger, you will play a critical role in the development and optimization of autonomous aircraft systems, ensuring precise mass properties tracking and analysis throughout the product lifecycle. Your expertise will support aircraft performance trade studies, loads development, structural analysis, cost analysis, and mission effectiveness evaluations. This role is essential in driving the success of Shield AI’s next-gen autonomous vehicles, ensuring they meet stringent weight, balance, and efficiency requirements.
What you'll do:
- Lead and participate in system-level trade studies to optimize payload, propulsion, power distribution, thermal management, and flight dynamics.
- Conduct mass properties estimation for early-stage designs, prototyping, and full-scale production.
- Estimate, calculate, and verify weight, center of gravity, and inertia properties for components, assemblies, and complete aircraft systems.
- Develop and refine analysis tools and methods for mass properties estimation and optimization.
- Generate and maintain mass properties reports for engineering, manufacturing, and leadership teams.
- Implement and execute mass properties verification tests to validate design assumptions.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams including aerodynamics, structures, avionics, propulsion, and manufacturing to ensure mass properties are controlled throughout development.
- Maintain and update the mass properties database to track weight trends across vehicle programs.
Required qualifications:
- B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Material Science/Engineering, or related field.
- 3+ years of experience in mass properties analysis within aerospace, defense, or high-tech vehicle development.
- Proficiency in CAD software (SolidWorks, Siemens NX, or similar).
- Familiarity with mass properties industry standards (ATA100, SAWE RP A-7, RP 7, RP 8, or predecessors).
- Experience defining mass properties requirements and ensuring compliance across design iterations.
- Experience developing and maintaining a Mass Properties Management and Control Plan.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science or Engineering, or a related field
- 3+ years of mass properties analysis experience in aerospace, defense, or high-tech vehicle development
- Proficiency with CAD software such as SolidWorks, Siemens NX, or similar
- Familiarity with mass properties industry standards, including ATA100 and SAWE RP A-7, RP 7, RP 8, or predecessors
- Experience defining mass properties requirements and ensuring compliance across design iterations
- Experience developing and maintaining a Mass Properties Management and Control Plan
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
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.
