{"id":3038206,"url":"https://alion.io/job/shield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat","title":"Director, Mechanical Systems X-BAT (R6348)","company":{"id":50,"name":"Shield AI","domain":"shield.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/shield-ai","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":73,"open_postings":82,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.854,"repost_share":0.012,"time_to_fill_p50_days":65,"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Seattle, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":265000,"max":370000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":370000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":15,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"MIL-STD-810","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-21T18:14:17Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T16:35:30Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":7,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":7},"description":"Job Description\nShield AI’s mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. We develop autonomy software and advanced aircraft to help U.S. and allied forces accomplish their missions in challenging environments.\nAre you an experienced engineering leader passionate about developing advanced autonomous aircraft? Do you want to build exceptional teams and deliver the mechanical systems that turn aircraft ambition into flight capability? Shield AI may be the place for you.\nShield AI is seeking a Director of X-BAT Mechanical Systems to lead engineering managers and senior technical leaders responsible for mechanical systems and mechanical test on X-BAT, while overseeing Mechanical Engineering and Air Vehicle Systems across our Group 5 aircraft programs. This leader will establish technical strategy, build organizational capability, and oversee execution from architecture and design through integration, qualification, ground test, and flight readiness.\nThe scope includes landing gear, wing fold, doors, flight control actuation, hydraulics, environmental control, and thermal management. The ideal candidate combines broad aircraft mechanical systems expertise with a demonstrated ability to lead through managers, develop technical leaders, and balance engineering rigor with development speed. They bring the judgment to empower teams, challenge critical decisions, and engage directly when needed to advance aircraft capability.\nWhat You'll Do:\nLead and develop the mechanical systems and mechanical test organization for X-BAT, while providing leadership across Mechanical Engineering and Air Vehicle Systems for our Group 5 aircraft portfolio.\n\nDefine organizational structure, establish clear ownership and decision authority, and align talent and resources with aircraft and program priorities.\n\nRecruit, coach, and develop engineering managers and senior technical leaders, building leadership capacity, technical depth, and succession capability.\n\nEstablish technical strategy, capability roadmaps, and development priorities for landing gear, wing fold, doors, flight control actuation, hydraulics, environmental control, and thermal management.\n\nLead aircraft-level architecture and trade studies that balance performance, reliability, safety, mass, power, volume, maintainability, cost, and schedule.\n\nPartner with adjacent engineering organizations to resolve interfaces, reconcile competing requirements, manage dependencies, and retire critical technical risks.\n\nOversee execution from requirements definition and design through hardware development, systems integration, qualification, ground test, and flight readiness.\n\nEstablish practical expectations for design reviews, verification, risk management, and configuration control that produce clear evidence of design maturity and readiness.\n\nBuild mechanical test capability encompassing test strategy, facilities, fixtures, instrumentation, procedures, and data analysis to accelerate learning and verify system performance.\n\nGuide hardware development and supplier strategy, establish technical expectations, and hold suppliers and manufacturing partners accountable for quality and execution.\n\nWork closely with manufacturing, ground test, and flight test leadership to align resources, resolve hardware issues, and deliver integrated systems for aircraft evaluation.\n\nCommunicate technical direction, progress, risks, decisions, and resource needs to executive leadership, program stakeholders, and customers.\n\nRequired Qualifications:\nBachelor’s degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical discipline.\n\n15+ years of relevant experience in aerospace mechanical systems, air vehicle systems, or comparable complex hardware development.\n\nSubstantial experience managing engineering managers and senior technical leaders within a multidisciplinary engineering organization.\n\nBroad technical credibility across aircraft mechanical systems, with significant expertise in landing gear, actuation, mechanisms, environmental control, or thermal management.\n\nDemonstrated success building engineering organizations, hiring and developing leaders, allocating resources, and maintaining high technical standards.\n\nExperience guiding teams through hardware development, systems integration, verification, supplier execution, manufacturing, and flight test.\n\nProven ability to make aircraft-level tradeoffs, manage dependencies across programs, and focus teams on work that advances program objectives.\n\nSound engineering and business judgment, including the ability to make decisions with incomplete information while balancing technical risk, cost, schedule, and program maturity.\n\nClear, decisive communication skills and demonstrated success creating alignment across engineering, program leadership, and external stakeholders.\n\nU.S. citizenship.\n\nPreferred Qualifications:\nLeadership experience spanning multiple mechanical engineering departments or a broad air vehicle systems portfolio.\n\nDevelopment experience on UAVs, autonomous aircraft, fighters, tactical aircraft, or other high-performance aerospace programs.\n\nExperience scaling engineering organizations, mechanical test facilities, and development processes in a rapid research and development or production environment.\n\nFamiliarity with aircraft airworthiness, qualification, and verification practices, including MIL-HDBK-516 and MIL-STD-810.\n\nDemonstrated success taking aircraft hardware through prototype build, integration, ground test, flight test, and transition to production.\n\nAdvanced degree in a relevant engineering discipline.\n\nActive Secret or higher security clearance.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5699,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":15,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Military Drones","Defense Manufacturing","Defense AI","Drone AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T21:58:52Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 2","filings_12m":2,"filings_prev_12m":2,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":132500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":7,"expected_fill_days":65,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":370000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/shield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/shield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-29T16:44:12Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":25007,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-30T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":50},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=50"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fshield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fshield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fshield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/shield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fshield-ai-director-mechanical-systems-x-bat"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3038206}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"shield.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3038206},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}