Director, Engineering Excellence & Design Standards

Dallas, Texas / San Diego, California / United States

X-BAT Division – X-BAT Technical Program Management /

Full Time Employee /

On-site

Founded in 2015, 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 and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. 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

$209,197 - $313,795 a year

#LI-JM2

#LF

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.

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.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

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