Senior Director, Engineering (R4493)
Shield AI
Sales & Business Development
San Diego, CA, USA
Posted on Jan 30, 2026
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:
Shield AI is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to own and drive execution across the core Hivemind Platform engineering teams, including Forge, Pilot, Foundations, and Strategic Projects.
In this role, you will serve as the single accountable leader for engineering delivery, technical execution, and organizational performance. You will be empowered to make prioritization and execution decisions required to deliver a coherent, scalable, and high-quality autonomy platform.
This role exists to ensure the Hivemind Platform is executed with clarity, speed, and rigor at scale. You will run the engineering organization end-to-end, while partnering closely with Product, Program Management, Architecture, Systems Engineering, and Quality, to ensure delivery against business, customer, and mission needs.
What you'll do:
- Own Platform Engineering Outcomes:
- Own delivery, execution velocity, and technical coherence across Forge, Pilot, Foundations, and Strategic Projects
- Be accountable for platform delivery outcomes
- Translate platform strategy and product direction into executable engineering plans and commitments
- Lead the Platform Engineering Organization:
- Directly manage and develop the leaders of Forge, Pilot, Foundations, and Strategic Projects
- Set and uphold a high bar for technical rigor, ownership, and operational excellence
- Build, scale, and sustain a high-performing engineering leadership team
- Drive Cross-Team Execution and Tradeoffs:
- Own cross-team prioritization and execution tradeoffs within the platform
- Resolve conflicts decisively and transparently
- Balance speed, quality, scalability, safety, and certifiability in delivery decisions
- Partner Across the Organization:
- Partner with Product Management to align engineering execution with platform and customer priorities
- Work closely with Architecture to ensure platform evolution is executable and sustainably delivered
- Coordinate with Quality, Systems Engineering, and Program Management to ensure integrated delivery
- Establish Engineering Operating Discipline:
- Define and operate the platform engineering execution model (planning, tracking, reviews, escalation)
- Ensure clear decision rights, ownership, and accountability across teams
- Provide visibility into progress, risks, and dependencies without unnecessary process overhead
- Scale the Platform:
- Ensure platform capabilities scale across missions, domains, customers, and autonomous platforms
- Identify systemic execution risks and drive corrective action
- Continuously improve engineering effectiveness and delivery predictability
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics Engineering, Autonomy Systems or a related technical field
- 12+ years of experience in software-intensive systems, with significant experience leading engineering organizations
- Proven track record owning delivery for complex systems across multiple teams
- Demonstrated ability to make hard prioritization and tradeoff decisions and deliver results
- Strong systems-level understanding across software platforms, autonomy, integration, and operations
- Experience building, leading, and scaling senior engineering leaders
- Exceptional communication skills with technical, executive, and cross-functional stakeholders
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience leading platform or infrastructure organizations supporting multiple products or programs
- Background in autonomy, robotics, aerospace, defense, or other safety-critical systems
- Experience operating in environments with high assurance, certification, or mission-critical constraints
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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.