Director, Flight Systems Integration (R4711)

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the 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:

The Director of Flight Systems Integration (FSI) leads the development, integration, and deployment of the AI pilot to a variety of defense and commercial platforms. This role oversees a multidisciplinary team, including software engineers, autonomy developers, perception engineers, and other specialized roles, to ensure the AI pilot is successfully integrated and optimized for each platform’s unique needs. The FSI Director is responsible for technical strategy, team leadership, and delivery of scalable, reliable autonomy to meet program needs. This role is accountable for FSI team performance, including schedule and quality.

What you'll do::
Technical Leadership & Strategy:

• Lead the development and integration of AI pilots across multiple flight systems and platforms, ensuring that the AI is adaptable and meets the specific needs of each platform’s requirements and mission objectives.

• Oversee and manage the integration of AI autonomy, perception, and control algorithms with platform-specific hardware and software systems.​

• Establish best practices for software quality, safety, reliability, performance, and scalability.

• Champion innovation through research, prototyping, and applied AI/ML techniques.

Team Leadership & Growth:

• Build, mentor, and retain a diverse and high-performing team of engineers and managers, through employee development and engagement.

• Foster a culture of technical excellence, quality, and accountability.

• Establish venues and mechanisms for collaboration and sharing of best practices.

• Track and maintain staffing demand forecasts and corresponding hiring plans to ensure program resource demands are met.

• Partner with Talent Acquisition to attract top talent and build a solid pipeline of engineers.

• Coordinate efforts across engineering disciplines to ensure seamless integration of AI capabilities within flight systems, balancing system performance, safety, and reliability.​

Engineering Execution & Technical Quality:

• Drive the development and refinement of AI autonomy and perception systems, ensuring they meet the program goals and operational requirements of mission autonomy and platform compatibility.

• Collaborate with autonomy and perception engineers to enhance the AI’s ability to perceive its environment, make real-time decisions, and execute mission-critical actions safely and effectively.​

• Translate business, customer, and product needs into technical execution plans.

• Own technical quality outcomes, including measurable bug reduction, defect prevention, and system reliability.

• Promote consistency, maintainability, and long-term organizational scalability. Establish and enforce engineering standards for code quality, documentation, and reviews, including design guides, coding and style guides, and interface/integration standards. Implement appropriate governance mechanisms for technical decision-making and change control. Ensure all is practical, accessible, and actively used.

• Implement right-sized development processes that balance speed, rigor, quality and safety. Implement appropriate process controls.

• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to improve engineer efficiency and reduce rework and regressions.

Platform Integration and Adaptation:

• Ensure the AI pilot is customized and adapted to meet the specific needs of a wide range of defense and commercial platforms, considering constraints such as hardware limitations, safety standards, and mission requirements. Lead platform-specific integration efforts, ensuring the AI system works seamlessly with each platform’s control systems, sensors, and communication interfaces.​

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Partner with product development, systems engineering, and program management teams to ensure alignment between platform requirements, AI capabilities, and overall system design. Collaborate with system architects and systems engineers to drive architecture decisions for perception, cognition, and action, ensuring that AI solutions are fully integrated with the broader platform architecture and systems.

Performance Optimization and Testing:

• Lead efforts to optimize the performance of AI systems in flight environments, conducting rigorous testing in simulation and live environments to validate system performance. Oversee flight system tests and simulations to identify and resolve any integration issues, ensuring that AI performance meets or exceeds mission requirements before platform deployment.

Required qualifications::
• 10+ years of experience in Aerospace & Defense

• 5+ years of experience in Autonomy development, Systems Engineering, or equivalent engineering roles

• 3+ years of leadership experience

• B.S. or Master’s degree in Engineering or related field, or equivalent experience

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal

• You are organized and methodical

• You have a demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself and others to high standards, and being kind to others

Preferred qualifications::
• 5+ years of experience integrating software on Group 3 or 5 UAS

• 5+ years of experience with autonomous systems

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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.