We are seeking an experienced Senior Staff Lab Manager to lead the design, development, operation, and long-term strategy of our engineering laboratories. This is a highly technical leadership role responsible for creating world-class lab environments that enable hardware and software engineering teams to rapidly develop, integrate, test, and validate complex systems.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with strong operational leadership, driving lab architecture, infrastructure modernization, asset management, and engineering support while leading a team of engineers and technicians.

• Lead the technical strategy for V-BAT fleet data analysis across fielded aircraft, flight test, simulation, production, and quality workflows 
• Own and improve the pipelines that transform raw flight, simulation, and fleet data into reliable engineering metrics, reports, and analysis products 
• Conduct fleet-wide studies to identify trends in hardware quality, system performance, reliability, and operational behavior 
• Analyze flight-critical sensor performance, GNSS-denied navigation performance, communications behavior, and other aircraft subsystems that are critical to mission success 
• Standardize the team’s analysis methods across online tools, Jupyter notebooks, automated Python scripts, and legacy Matlab workflows 
• Define best practices for analysis methods, data review, documentation, validation, reproducibility, and contribution workflows 
• Build automated Python workflows that make high-value metrics easily accessible to engineering, production, quality, and leadership teams 
• Partner with DevOps to build, deploy, maintain, and scale the infrastructure required for automated analysis pipelines and dashboards 
• Work with Software, GNC, Embedded, Flight Test, Systems, Production, Quality, and Operations teams to define metrics that reflect aircraft performance and product health 
• Support anomaly investigations, root-cause analysis, release readiness, production quality improvements, and customer-impacting fleet investigations with rigorous data analysis 
• Mentor engineers on effective data analysis practices and raise the quality bar for data-driven engineering decisions across the V-BAT team 

• 5+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related technical field 
• Strong Python skills and experience building data analysis tools, automated analysis workflows, or data pipelines 
• Experience analyzing data from fielded physical products such as aerospace systems, automotive systems, robotics platforms, commercial electronics, IoT devices, industrial equipment, or similarly complex real-world systems 
• Experience working with large, messy datasets from deployed products, test events, simulations, production systems, or operational environments 
• Ability to translate ambiguous engineering questions into structured analysis, sound conclusions, and clear recommendations 
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence cross-functional engineering, production, quality, and operations teams 

• Experience with flight test data, aircraft telemetry, UAVs, robotics, autonomy, embedded systems, GNC, navigation systems, communications systems, or aerospace sensor suites 
• Experience with Matlab, Jupyter, or similar analysis and visualization tools 
• Experience building production-quality dashboards, automated reports, data products, or fleet-health monitoring systems 
• Experience with databases, cloud storage, data lake architectures, time-series databases, telemetry systems, or data cataloging 
• Experience with anomaly detection, trend analysis, statistical process control, reliability analysis, regression detection, or automated validation of complex systems 

• Conduct audits of ground procedures and operational practices across the enterprise to ensure compliance, identify gaps, and drive corrective actions. 
• Develop, maintain, and report leading and lagging safety metrics to drive transparency and continuous improvement. 
• Own and manage the Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) process, ensuring findings are logged, analyzed, assigned, and closed on schedule. 
• Lead the Safety Promotions program, including communications, awareness campaigns, and training touchpoints. 
• Lead medium- and lower-priority mishap and near-miss investigations, ensuring proper root cause analysis, documentation, and follow-through. 
• Maintain the Operational Risk Registry for the V-BAT platform and coordinate with engineering and operational stakeholders to ensure risks are properly assessed and updated. 
• Collaborate with Airworthiness and System Safety teams to align operational and engineering safety efforts. 
• Contribute to cross-functional safety reviews, readiness assessments, and operational approval activities. 
• Support customer reporting obligations and engagements related to operational safety performance. 
• Perform other duties as assigned.

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, safety, aviation, or related discipline (or equivalent operational experience). 
• 3–5+ years of experience in aviation safety, flight or ground operations, UAS operations, or safety management systems. 
• Familiarity with SMS principles, operational audits, and mishap investigation processes. 
• Ability to work effectively across diverse operational environments with multiple stakeholders. 
• Strong analytical skills and proficiency with safety or quality tracking systems. 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly in producing investigation reports and safety summaries. 

• Experience supporting UAS flight operations or military/rapid-deployment aviation environments. 
• Experience developing safety promotion or training materials. 
• Familiarity with risk management frameworks and operational assurance tools. 
• Formal training in mishap investigation methodologies (HFACS, TapRooT, RCA). 
• Experience with safety data analysis or safety‑related software tools. 
• Demonstrated field experience supporting flightline or mission operations. 

• Lead engineering investigations for V-BAT field failures, repeat defects, reliability issues, maintainability issues, and complex technical escalations.
• Drive Root Cause and Corrective Action investigations for fielded V-BAT issues, including containment, root cause identification, corrective action planning, verification, and closure.
• Reproduce and analyze field issues using logs, returned hardware, test data, maintenance records, operational context, configuration data, environmental conditions, and customer-reported symptoms.
• Partner with Fleet Support Engineers, Product Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Reliability Data Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations to investigate and resolve fielded system issues.
• Determine whether issues are caused by design, manufacturing, supplier quality, configuration, software, operator use, environmental exposure, maintenance practices, documentation gaps, or system integration effects.
• Lead or support returned material analysis, teardown reviews, bench testing, inspection planning, fault isolation, and failure replication activities.
• Document failure modes, root cause, contributing factors, containment actions, corrective actions, verification plans, and recurrence-prevention measures.
• Drive corrective actions through closure by ensuring actions have owners, due dates, verification methods, and measurable field-improvement outcomes.
• Identify reliability and maintainability trends from field failures, repeat defects, maintenance data, test results, and product health indicators.
• Recommend new tests, inspections, diagnostics, design changes, process changes, maintenance updates, or supplier quality actions to prevent recurrence.
• Provide technical input to product health reviews, reliability readouts, sustainment reviews, fleet readiness assessments, and leadership updates.
• Support development and improvement of R&M processes, including field failure review, FRACAS, RCCA, reliability growth tracking, maintainability feedback loops, and corrective action management.
• Work with Product Engineering to ensure field-failure findings are translated into design improvements, retrofit plans, software updates, service actions, or configuration changes where appropriate.
• Work with Quality and Manufacturing to determine whether failures are linked to process escapes, inspection gaps, workmanship issues, supplier defects, or production variation.
• Work with Fleet Support and Operations to understand operational impact, maintenance burden, customer effects, and urgency of fielded system issues.
• Provide clear technical recommendations on containment, inspection, repair, replacement, retrofit, service guidance, or fleet-level mitigation.
• Communicate investigation findings, risks, corrective actions, and verification status clearly to technical teams, sustainment leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Support X-BAT lessons learned where V-BAT reliability, maintainability, and field-failure experience can inform future design, sustainment, diagnostics, repairability, and lifecycle planning.

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of experience in reliability engineering, maintainability engineering, failure analysis, systems engineering, quality engineering, aviation sustainment, product support, manufacturing engineering, or complex hardware sustainment.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical investigations for field failures, repeat defects, hardware issues, system-level issues, or complex product performance problems.
• Experience driving Root Cause and Corrective Action investigations from initial problem statement through containment, root cause, corrective action, verification, and closure.
• Strong ability to analyze hardware, software behavior, logs, test data, returned material, field reports, configuration history, maintenance records, and operational context.
• Familiarity with structured problem-solving and failure-analysis methods such as 5 Whys, fault tree analysis, fishbone diagrams, 8D, FMEA/FMECA, FRACAS, fault isolation, or similar methods.
• Ability to distinguish between design, manufacturing, supplier quality, configuration, software, operator, environmental, maintenance, and documentation-related contributors.
• Experience working across Product Engineering, Fleet Support, Quality, Manufacturing, Reliability Data Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations to resolve technical issues.
• Strong technical judgment and problem-solving skills, including the ability to investigate ambiguous field reports, identify likely failure modes, and define practical next steps.
• Ability to convert technical findings into clear corrective actions, verification plans, risk assessments, and product or process improvement recommendations.
• Experience supporting customer-impacting technical issues in aviation, unmanned systems, robotics, defense, manufacturing, aerospace, or complex electromechanical systems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document technical findings, investigation rationale, corrective actions, and leadership-level summaries.
• Ability to operate independently as a senior technical IC and drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.
• Ability to balance engineering rigor, investigation depth, field urgency, customer impact, and fleet-readiness needs.

• Experience with unmanned aircraft systems, aviation sustainment, aerospace manufacturing, defense products, robotics, or deployed hardware systems.
• Experience with FRACAS, reliability growth programs, fleet reliability tracking, MTBF/MTBUR analysis, Weibull analysis, reliability block diagrams, maintainability analysis, or product health dashboards.
• Experience analyzing aircraft logs, flight data, maintenance data, telemetry, software logs, test results, inspection findings, or returned hardware.
• Familiarity with RCCA, MRB, ECO/ECR processes, configuration management, service bulletins, maintenance releases, retrofit planning, or field service actions.
• Experience investigating failures in avionics, propulsion, power systems, flight controls, structures, payload interfaces, ground equipment, support equipment, or complex electromechanical assemblies.
• Experience working with Reliability Data Engineering, data analytics, or fleet health monitoring teams to identify failure trends and emerging risks.
• Experience supporting fielded products where technical recommendations directly affect readiness, safety, maintainability, or customer operations.
• Experience working in a startup, high-growth, defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or advanced manufacturing environment.
• Advanced degree in Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline preferred but not required.

Are you a passionate and innovative product design engineer looking to help develop state-of-the-art AI and aircraft products? Are you eager to make a positive difference in the world? Do you want to work alongside mission driven and values focused teammates? Shield AI is just the place for you!

As a Principal Landing Gear Engineer, you will be responsible for contributing to the mechanical design and development of Shield AI's autonomous UAV products. You will help architect landing gear on next generation unmanned aerial platforms, perform the detailed design of landing gear, doors and related mechanisms, and will use best in class design and analysis tools. You will collaborate closely with internal and/or external partners to prototype, test and release products to production. You will also help ensure product features achieve performance, schedule and reliability goals.

Shield AI is seeking a Ground Support & Payload Analyst to serve as the data backbone for ground support equipment and payloads within the Fleet Strategy & Portfolio Management function in Aircraft Division.

Fleet Strategy & Portfolio Management is responsible for translating asset visibility into business-grounded recommendations on how to align aircraft, ground support equipment, and payloads across customers, programs, captures, and internal demand. The function maintains authoritative, real-time ledgers of every asset in the enterprise fleet and turns that visibility into the dashboards, forecasts, and configuration intelligence that drive enterprise decision-making.

The Ground Support & Payload Analyst will maintain the authoritative ledger of all ground support equipment and payloads across the enterprise, build and own the analytical infrastructure that supports GSE and payload decisions, and translate that data into clear recommendations for the Senior Manager and Mission Control leadership. This role requires deep understanding of GSE operations, payload systems, and rigorous data discipline. Deployment planning, fleet allocation, and capture support decisions depend on the accuracy and timeliness of the data this role produces.