Director, Engineering Excellence & Design Standards

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Job Description: 

Shield AI is building the world’s best AI pilot to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. As we scale both our proven VBAT platform and develop next-generation systems like XBAT, we are investing in how we build—not just what we build. 

We are seeking a senior technical leader to define and operationalize engineering design standards across the company. This position is focused on establishing engineering excellence—driving consistency, rigor, and scalability across design, analysis, certification, CAD, documentation, and configuration management. 

This is a high-impact individual contributor role with broad scope across multiple engineering disciplines, responsible for raising the bar on engineering quality without slowing down execution. 

What you'll do:

• Establish and own engineering design standards across programs, including XBAT and VBAT 
• Define and standardize best practices for aerospace design, analysis workflows, and system-level engineering rigor  
• Develop standards for CAD usage, drawing quality, standard notes, release processes, and engineering documentation 
• Manufacturing & supply chain handoff including EBOM and MBOM creation along with driving part demand
• Build and mature an engineering excellence framework that scales with the company  
• Partner with engineering leadership to align teams on consistent ways of working  
• Ensure standards are practical, accessible, and consistently applied across teams  
• Influence design decisions and engineering processes across disciplines without becoming a bottleneck  
• Support both near-term program execution and long-term scalability of engineering processes  
• Drive improvements in configuration management, documentation quality, and design consistency  
• Ability to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance desired.

Required qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in aerospace or high-performance hardware design environments 
• Deep experience working within organizations that maintain strong engineering standards and design rigor 
• Broad technical background across multiple engineering domains (mechanical, aerospace, systems, etc.)  
• Experience defining or applying design standards, documentation practices, and configuration management systems  
• Familiarity with industry standards such as MIL-STD-810, DO-160, and ASME Y14.5 (GD&T)  
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior engineers and drive alignment across teams  
• Strong track record of improving engineering quality, consistency, and scalability 
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate standards and expectations across technical audiences 

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Full-time regular employee offer package:
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
 
Temporary employee offer package:
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
 
Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
 
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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.