Engineering Manager, Air Vehicle Mechanical Systems (R5391)

The role

You will lead and develop a team of mechanical engineers working on aircraft mechanisms and actuation systems for Shield AI's next-generation autonomous UAV platform. You will support the director of engineering in a deputy role and help align engineering work across sites and programs.

What you will do

• Lead and develop a team of mechanical engineers, from new grad to Principal, focused on aircraft mechanisms and actuation systems.
• Act as technical resource for end-to-end design of mechanisms such as doors and latching, uplocks and downlocks, landing gear, flight control actuation, nozzle actuation, and hydraulics.
• Set the quality bar for mechanisms engineering in sizing, tolerances, margins, drawings, materials and verification.
• Give engineers clear goals, interfaces, resources and decision rights.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration with systems, structures, aero, propulsion, GNC, avionics, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, test and flight test.
• Coach and develop engineers through mentorship, career development, feedback, hiring, onboarding and performance management.
• Manage team workload across multiple builds and test campaigns and communicate risk, staffing and schedule impacts.

Required qualifications

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent.
• 10+ years experience with aerospace mechanisms and actuated system design, build, integration, test and flight.
• 2+ years leading teams or performing in a team leadership role.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams with high autonomy.
• Strong engineering fundamentals: kinematics, statics/dynamics, fatigue/wear, GD&T, materials and finishes, lubrication/bearings, failure modes.
• Experience shipping hardware through prototype build, test, iteration and release, including supplier and manufacturing engagement.

Nice to have

• Experience with environmental and operational robustness such as vibration, shock, thermal extremes, contamination, corrosion and sand/dust.
• Experience supporting ground test and flight test campaigns and mechanism failure investigations.
• Familiarity with reliability and safety methods such as DFMEA, FTA, fault containment and safe-state thinking.
• Experience building supplier relationships for machined parts, actuation systems and mechanisms assemblies, including special processes and inspection strategies.

Benefits

• Bonus
• Benefits
• Equity (full-time regular employees)
• Temporary benefits package after 60 days (temporary employees)

Before you apply

• 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.