The Ukraine Training Manager is responsible for the leadership, management, and execution of Shield AI's V-BAT customer training program supporting Ukraine. This position oversees all aspects of training operations, ensuring instruction is delivered safely, effectively, and in accordance with approved Programs of Instruction (POIs) while meeting contractual requirements and customer expectations.
The Ukraine Training Manager serves as the primary operational liaison for all Ukraine training activities, providing oversight of instructor staffing, personnel readiness, aircraft availability, student progression, and day-to-day course execution. Working closely with the Ukraine Senior Manager, Fleet Support, Curriculum Development, Engineering, Security, Program Management, and the customer, this individual identifies operational risks, develops personnel courses of action, and ensures training teams have the resources required to accomplish the mission.
This role is responsible for developing and standardizing the Ukraine instructor cadre while continuously improving course delivery, student outcomes, and operational effectiveness.
What you'll do:
- Lead and supervise the daily execution of training and sustainment operations in coordination with the Managing Director and field teams.
- Serve as a critical interface with Ukrainian and NATO customer counterparts, facilitating planning, mission execution, and issue resolution.
- Manage deployment cycles and theater movement of company personnel, ensuring all operational and logistical requirements are met.
- Oversee intelligence and operations fusion, ensuring timely collection, analysis, and dissemination to support mission planning and situational awareness.
- Ensure implementation of force protection measures, export compliance, and operational risk mitigation procedures.
- Support and supervise the integration of new technologies into operational environments.
- Facilitate coordination across training, logistics, and sustainment lines of effort to enable successful outcomes.
Required qualifications:
- Minimum 5 years of operational leadership experience in military, defense contracting, or international field operations.
- Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring operational teams in dynamic or austere environments.
- Proven ability to coordinate across diverse stakeholders in support of mission-critical activities.
- Strong organizational, reporting, and communication skills.
- Familiarity with force protection, export compliance, and logistics operations in deployed environments.
- Technical acumen to manage field-level integration of new technologies.
Preferred qualifications:
- Previous operational or advisory experience in Ukraine.
- Leadership experience in a combat zone or forward-deployed theater.
- Experience working with NATO or partner nation forces in an official capacity.
- Fluency or working knowledge of Ukrainian or Russian language.
Skills Required
- At least 5 years of operational leadership experience in military, defense contracting, or international field operations
- Experience leading or mentoring operational teams in dynamic or austere environments
- Ability to coordinate across diverse stakeholders for mission-critical activities
- Strong organizational, reporting, and communication skills
- Familiarity with force protection, export compliance, and logistics operations in deployed environments
- Technical acumen to manage field-level integration of new technologies
- Operational or advisory experience in Ukraine
- Leadership experience in a combat zone or forward-deployed theater
- Experience working with NATO or partner nation forces in an official capacity
- Fluency or working knowledge of Ukrainian or Russian
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as excellent, with dental/vision and mental‑health support, and ancillary protections like life and disability appearing in benefit summaries. The breadth and perceived affordability of coverage are highlighted as a standout component of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is featured alongside enhanced maternity benefits, fertility and childcare support, and onsite resources such as a Mother’s Room. These elements are positioned as competitive and above the minimal baseline for the company’s stage.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full‑time hires, with RSUs, double‑trigger tax timing, and tools to model scenarios (e.g., through Carta Tax). Communications also reference a transition from options to RSUs, reinforcing access and maturity of ownership programs.
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.
