Shield AI is seeking a Senior Mission Systems Engineer to serve as the mission systems SME for the V-BAT Fleet Support team. In this role, you will own customer-facing engineering support for payload system issues, transponder system issues, emerging mission-technology integrations, and systems that communicate with external sources or provide data externally.
You will serve as the bridge between Fleet Support and the mission systems, payload, software, electrical, and communications engineering teams to ensure customers receive expert engineering support for mission-critical capabilities.
What you'll do:
- Serve as the mission systems SME for Fleet Support and lead escalated investigations involving payloads, transponders, and externally connected mission systems.
- Diagnose payload integration and performance issues involving power, thermal behavior, compute, configuration, data interfaces, timing, and subsystem interoperability.
- Troubleshoot systems that communicate with external sources or provide data externally, including mission-data outputs, external interfaces, and system-to-system connectivity issues.
- Support the introduction of emerging technologies and new mission capabilities into the fielded fleet by identifying support risks, validation needs, and integration challenges.
- Work directly with customers, operators, and maintainers to understand mission impact, reproduce issues, and define corrective actions.
- Partner with electrical, software, and RF teams on cross-functional mission-system problems.
- Support lab validation, hardware integration, test readiness, and field demonstrations related to mission-system fixes.
- Create technical guidance, interface notes, troubleshooting procedures, and customer-facing documentation for fielded mission capabilities.
- Capture recurring issues and feed lessons learned back into product, systems, and design teams.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 5+ years of experience in payload integration, sensor integration, mission systems, avionics integration, or aircraft systems engineering.
- Experience troubleshooting complex systems that span hardware, software, networking, and operational workflows.
- Strong ability to move between high-level mission context and detailed subsystem investigation.
- Experience working across design, integration, test, and field-support environments.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in customer-facing technical settings.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) payloads, radar, transponders, or other externally connected aircraft mission systems.
- Experience with interface control documents, validation planning, and flight-test support.
- Experience introducing new payloads or mission kits into operational fleets.
- Experience with defense, maritime, or expeditionary mission systems.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Systems, Aerospace, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline
- 5+ years experience in payload integration, sensor integration, mission systems, avionics integration, or aircraft systems engineering
- Experience troubleshooting complex systems spanning hardware, software, networking, and operational workflows
- Ability to move between high-level mission context and detailed subsystem investigation
- Experience across design, integration, test, and field-support environments
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in customer-facing technical settings
- Experience with electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) payloads, radar, transponders, or other externally connected aircraft mission systems
- Experience with interface control documents, validation planning, and flight-test support
- Experience introducing new payloads or mission kits into operational fleets
- Experience with defense, maritime, or expeditionary mission systems
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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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.
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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.
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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
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.
