Assistant Product Owner, CCA Mission Autonomy (Platform Integration) (R5849)

The role

You will support the delivery of mission autonomy for the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. You will own the day-to-day Shoal 1 product backlog in Jira and Confluence and translate customer needs into user stories and epics for feature crews.

What you will do

• Work with the Product Owner and Chief Engineer to understand customer needs and set priorities
• Elicit and validate needs from the customer and from operational subject matter experts or end users
• Translate customer intent into user stories and epics with acceptance criteria, effort, dependencies and risks
• Own day-to-day management of the Shoal 1 epic backlog across feature crews
• Provide a product perspective at Shoal 1 sprint planning and review ceremonies
• Manage dependencies across shoals with the Shoal Lead
• Support development of the operator interface through the backlog
• Keep protected weekly hands-on time in the operator interface
• Support the platform integration crew in vendor interaction
• Translate across disciplines and make specialist discussion accessible to the whole team

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, aerospace engineering, cognitive systems engineering, human factors or a related technical field, or equivalent military or operational experience
• 3+ years in product ownership or a related field
• Hands-on proficiency with Jira and Confluence, including authoring epics, user stories and acceptance criteria
• Ability to hold an integrated view of a complex product across distributed documentation and disciplines
• Willingness to become a hands-on user of the operator interface
• Working technical fluency in mission autonomy, autonomous systems, flight software, ground control systems or HMIs, or avionics interfaces
• Exceptional written and oral communication
• Strong problem solving and judgment under ambiguity with minimal supervision
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team
• Must be a U.S. person as defined under ITAR
• Active U.S. DoD Secret security clearance required at time of hire; must be eligible for Top Secret, SCI and/or SAP access
• Ability to travel domestically approximately 15–25%

Nice to have

• Experience supporting a U.S. Air Force, Navy or joint aviation program of record involving uncrewed or autonomous collaborative platforms
• Familiarity with A-GRA, A-GRI, UCI messaging or modular open systems architectures
• Experience with airworthiness, functional safety or assurance-driven software processes
• Exposure to flight autonomy, vehicle management systems or flight test campaigns
• Experience with C2 or HMI products for uncrewed systems (e.g., STANAG 4586, MAVLink, CoT, TAK)
• Formal grounding in product, human factors or cognitive systems engineering methods
• Experience supporting OITL evaluations, test and evaluation, or functional check flights
• Proficiency with Cameo and reading interface control documents
• Experience establishing decision logs, change control or product governance
• Experience coordinating with platform manufacturers, primes or government program offices

Benefits

• Bonus
• Benefits package for full-time regular employees
• Equity for full-time regular employees
• Temporary benefits package for temporary employees, applicable after 60 days of employment

Before you apply

• Must be a U.S. person as defined under ITAR
• Active U.S. DoD Secret security clearance required at time of hire
• All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check
• Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits

About the company

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company that builds intelligent systems to protect service members and civilians. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation technologies.