Reporting to the Sr. Director, PXBP – Software, Products & Services, you will serve as a trusted strategic advisor to senior Engineering and Product leaders, translating business priorities into people strategies that strengthen organizational performance, leadership capability, and talent.
You will bring a strong understanding of how technical organizations create value and use business insight, data, and organizational expertise to solve complex people challenges. You will partner across People Experience (Px) to deliver scalable solutions spanning organizational design, workforce and talent planning, leadership effectiveness, and change.
This role will also play a key role in mergers, acquisitions, and organizational integrations, leading people-related work across due diligence, talent assessment, organizational design, integration planning, retention, change management, and cultural integration. You will help acquired teams integrate successfully while protecting critical talent, business continuity, and employee engagement.
What you'll do:
- Partner with senior Engineering and Product leaders to translate business and technical priorities into people and organizational strategies that enable innovation, execution, and scale.
- Advise on talent and workforce investments, including build, buy, and partner decisions, required to deliver against product and business priorities.
- Serve as a trusted advisor and coach to senior leaders on leadership effectiveness, team performance, and complex people decisions.
- Shape organizational design, roles, and operating models to strengthen accountability, collaboration, speed, and scalability.
- Develop leadership and senior technical talent to strengthen organizational capability and succession.
- Partner on workforce and talent planning, identifying critical capability, capacity, succession, and retention risks and recommending actions aligned to business priorities.
- Shape workforce composition, location strategy, and talent approaches to build and retain critical capabilities.
- Use people and business data to assess organizational health, talent trends, leadership effectiveness, and workforce risks.
- Translate insights into clear recommendations that influence leadership decisions and improve organizational performance.
- Partner with key stakeholders on the people strategy for complex transformations, restructures, M&A, and organizational integrations.
- Collaborate on M&A due diligence and integration planning, including talent assessment, organizational design, retention, leadership alignment, and cultural integration.
- Advise leaders through change to maintain business continuity, organizational effectiveness, and employee engagement.
- Partner across PX, Finance, Legal, Corporate Development, Product, and other functions to deliver integrated solutions to complex business and talent challenges.
- Lead and contribute to cross-functional initiatives that strengthen scalable people practices and organizational effectiveness.
Strategic Engineering Partnership
Leadership Advisory & Organizational Effectiveness
Workforce & Talent Strategy
Data & Organizational Insights
Change, Transformation & M&A
Cross-Functional Leadership
What it takes to succeed:
- Strategic, business-first mindset. You understand how Engineering and Product organizations create value and connect people decisions to business and customer outcomes.
- Trusted and influential partner. You bring strong judgment, credibility, and the ability to coach and challenge senior leaders.
- Strong organizational effectiveness expertise. You bring depth in organizational design, workforce and talent planning, succession, leadership effectiveness, and change.
- M&A and integration experience. You understand the people implications of transactions and can effectively navigate talent, organizational, cultural, and change considerations.
- Data-driven problem solver. You use analytics and insight to identify patterns, simplify complexity, and influence decisions.
- Operationally strong and adaptable. You translate strategy into action and thrive in fast-paced, high-growth environments with evolving priorities.
- Systems thinker and collaborator. You connect business needs with the right partners and solutions while balancing immediate priorities with long-term organizational capability.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field.
- 12+ years of progressive HR Business Partner experience, including experience supporting Engineering, Product, AI/ML, Platform, or other highly technical organizations.
- Demonstrated success partnering with VP and Director-level leaders to develop and execute people strategies aligned with business priorities.
- Deep experience in organizational design, workforce planning, talent management, change management, and leadership coaching within scaling technology organizations.
- Experience supporting the people aspects of M&A, including due diligence, integration planning, talent assessment, retention, organizational alignment, and cultural integration.
- Experience advising senior leaders through periods of rapid growth, organizational transformation, restructuring, or integration.
- Experience operating within a global People organization and leveraging Centers of Excellence (COEs) and Shared Services to deliver scalable solutions.
- Strong understanding of technical talent markets, job architecture, leveling frameworks, and compensation principles.
- Demonstrated ability to leverage workforce analytics and people data to diagnose challenges and influence decisions.
- Exceptional consulting, coaching, stakeholder management, and influencing skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and build alignment across senior leaders.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting high-growth, complex, or rapidly scaling technology-based organizations.
- Experience partnering with Software, Product, AI/ML, Platform, or Services organizations.
- M&A experience, including pre-close diligence and post-close integration.
- Experience supporting global or geographically distributed teams and navigating complex matrixed organizations.
- Demonstrated expertise in organizational effectiveness, including operating model design, team effectiveness, and organizational diagnostics.
- Experience using people analytics, workforce insights, and business metrics to inform talent and organizational decisions.
- Familiarity with emerging technologies, including AI, and their implications for workforce strategy, skills, and organizational design.
- Experience working in fast-paced environments requiring strong judgment, adaptability, and comfort navigating ambiguity.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Management, or related field
- 8+ years of progressive HR experience including direct support of Engineering, Product, or technical organizations
- Demonstrated success partnering with senior Engineering leaders in a scaling organization
- Experience operating within a global People function that includes COEs and Shared Services
- Strong understanding of technical talent markets, job architecture, and leveling for engineering roles
- Experience leveraging HCM systems and people analytics to drive insights and decision-making
- Hybrid/on-site work based in San Mateo or San Diego, CA
- Offers contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check
- Experience in a high-growth technology or AI-driven company
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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Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
