Director, Engineering Excellence & Design Standards

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