Deputy Chief Engineer, X-BAT

Job Description Are you an experienced aircraft-development leader looking to help build a new class of autonomous combat aircraft? Are you energized by technically difficult problems, rapid execution, and the opportunity to redefine airpower? Shield AI may be the place for you. The Deputy Chief Engineer for X-BAT will report to the Air Vehicle Lead / Chief Engineer X-BAT and serve as their primary technical deputy across the design, development, integration, test, and maturation of the X-BAT air vehicle. This individual will help maintain the technical integrity of the aircraft while driving day-to-day engineering execution across structures, aerodynamics, propulsion, mechanical systems, avionics, electrical systems, flight controls, software, autonomy integration, manufacturing, and flight test. The ideal candidate combines broad aircraft technical depth with strong systems thinking, sound engineering judgment, and a demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams through ambiguity. They must be comfortable moving between system-level decisions and detailed technical problem-solving while balancing performance, safety, cost, schedule, manufacturability, and mission requirements. What You’ll Do Serve as the primary technical deputy to the X-BAT Air Vehicle Lead, acting on their behalf when necessary and helping translate program objectives into clear engineering priorities. Maintain the integrity of the air vehicle’s technical baseline, including system requirements, architecture, interfaces, configuration, performance, verification, and airworthiness evidence. Lead the day-to-day integration of engineering activities across aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, mechanical systems, avionics, electrical systems, flight controls, software, autonomy, manufacturing, and test. Drive aircraft-level technical decisions and trade studies, ensuring decisions are grounded in first-principles analysis and consider downstream effects on performance, safety, cost, schedule, producibility, maintainability, and operations. Establish and maintain a disciplined technical-risk process, ensuring risks are identified early, assigned accountable owners, supported by mitigation plans, and retired through analysis or test. Lead major technical and design reviews, ensuring the aircraft is sufficiently mature to progress through fabrication, ground test, flight test, qualification, and production. Partner with Program Management to align technical scope with schedule, budget, staffing, supplier, and customer commitments. Work closely with Manufacturing and Supply Chain to ensure designs are producible, scalable, and supported by a resilient supplier base. Partner with Test and Flight Operations to define verification strategies, ground- and flight-test objectives, instrumentation requirements, test readiness criteria, and issue-resolution plans. Lead rapid root-cause investigations and corrective actions for complex aircraft-level problems identified during integration, ground test, flight test, production, or operations. Ensure technical decisions and engineering changes are documented, communicated, and reflected in the controlled product baseline. Develop the technical leadership capabilities of engineering managers, functional leads, integrated product team leads, and senior individual contributors. Communicate aircraft status, technical risks, decision recommendations, and recovery plans clearly to program leadership, executives, customers, and external partners. Foster a culture of technical excellence, urgency, ownership, intellectual honesty, and constructive challenge. Required Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline. 12+ years of progressive experience developing complex aircraft, military aerospace systems, autonomous aircraft, or similarly integrated aerospace products. Demonstrated technical leadership on an aircraft-development program, preferably as a Chief Engineer, Deputy Chief Engineer, Air Vehicle Lead, Systems Engineering Lead, Integrated Product Team Lead, or equivalent. Broad understanding of aircraft design and integration across multiple engineering disciplines, with the technical judgment to identify critical interfaces and system-level consequences. Experience taking an aircraft or similarly complex aerospace system through multiple lifecycle stages, such as requirements development, preliminary and critical design, fabrication, integration, ground test, flight test, qualification, or production. Experience establishing and managing system requirements, technical baselines, interface definitions, design reviews, verification plans, and engineering risks. Demonstrated ability to make high-quality technical decisions with incomplete information and under aggressive program timelines. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues and recommendations to executive and customer audiences. Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams in a fast-paced development environment. Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. Preferred Qualifications Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Engineering Management, or a related discipline. Experience developing clean-sheet military aircraft, fighter aircraft, collaborative combat aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, or advanced VTOL platforms. Experience with propulsion integration, flight controls, vehicle management systems, autonomy integration, low-observable aircraft, or weapons and mission-systems integration. Experience supporting aircraft ground test, envelope expansion, developmental flight test, airworthiness, and mishap-risk reduction. Familiarity with military airworthiness frameworks, verification and validation processes, configuration management, and model-based systems engineering. Experience transitioning an aircraft from rapid prototype development into qualification, rate production, and operational deployment. Experience working directly with the Department of Defense, military service customers, external suppliers, and strategic industry partners. Background in a high-growth aerospace organization where speed, individual ownership, and first-principles thinking were essential to program success.