Assistant Product Owner, CCA Mission Autonomy (Platform Integration) (R5849)

Shield AI•Washington, DC

15d•$160,000 - $250,000

About The Position

The Assistant Product Owner (APO) supports Shield AI's delivery of mission autonomy (MA) to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. This program decouples MA from the airframe as a standalone capability. The 'product' encompasses the Autonomy Implementation package, including Mission Autonomy, Human Machine Interface (HMI) software, A-GRA compliance, mission systems, training, cybersecurity, and associated implementation/installation software. Shield AI's CCA programs utilize an agile framework, organized into a leadership tier overseeing multiple shoals, each with feature crews. The APO will initially support the Platform Integration and Support shoal (Shoal 1), focusing on integrating MA with platforms and the operator interface. The APO will collaborate with the Shoal Lead, Systems Engineering Lead, and four Feature Crew Leads, reporting directly to the Product Owner/Manager. The APO is responsible for the daily management of the Shoal 1 product backlog in Jira and Confluence, maintaining an integrated view of customer priorities, epics, interfaces, dependencies, and milestones, and ensuring the 'product' is clearly understood by the team.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, aerospace engineering, cognitive systems engineering, human factors, or a related technical field; or equivalent military or operational experience.
3+ years in product ownership or a related field (e.g., customer experience, human factors, cognitive systems engineering, human-machine teaming, systems engineering, or technical program management for complex software or aerospace systems).
Hands-on proficiency with Jira and Confluence as systems of record, including demonstrated experience authoring and managing epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria in an agile environment.
Demonstrated ability to hold an integrated view of a complex product across distributed documentation and multiple engineering disciplines.
Willingness to become a hands-on user of the operator interface, independently installing, configuring, and running mission scenarios.
Working technical fluency in mission autonomy, autonomous systems, flight software, ground control systems or HMIs, or avionics interfaces.
Exceptional written and oral communication, and proven ability to translate information across technical audiences without diluting technical accuracy.
Strong problem solving skills, including sound decision making and judgment under ambiguity with minimal supervision.
Ability to work effectively, both independently and as part of a team.
Must be a U.S. person as defined under ITAR.
Active U.S. DoD Secret security clearance is required at time of hire. Must be eligible for, and capable of obtaining and maintaining, Top Secret, SCI, and/or Special Access Program (SAP) level clearance/access.
Ability to travel domestically approximately 15–25%.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting a U.S. Air Force, Navy, or joint aviation program of record involving uncrewed or autonomous collaborative platforms.
Familiarity with the A-GRA, A-GRI, UCI messaging, or other modular open systems architectures.
Experience with airworthiness, functional safety, or assurance-driven software processes and certification artifacts.
Exposure to flight autonomy, vehicle management systems, or aircraft-level integration and flight test campaigns.
Experience with C2 or HMI products for uncrewed systems (e.g., STANAG 4586, MAVLink, CoT, TAK).
Formal grounding in product, human factors, or cognitive systems engineering methods.
Experience supporting OITL evaluations, test and evaluation campaigns, or functional check flight activity as a product or human factors representative.
Proficiency with systems and process modeling tools (e.g., Cameo), and with reading interface control documents (ICDs).
Experience establishing decision logs, change control, or product governance in a program that previously lacked them.
Experience coordinating directly with platform manufacturers, primes, or government program offices.
Military aviation, flight test, or uncrewed aircraft systems operational experience.
Advanced degree in engineering, business (e.g., MBA), or related field (e.g., computer science, aerospace, cognitive systems engineering, human factors).
Current or prior Special Access Program (SAP) or Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access.

Responsibilities

Work with the Product Owner and Chief Engineer to understand customer product needs and determine priority, separating must-have capability from deferrable scope.
Elicit and validate needs and priorities from the customer, including official guidance and scoping documents, and from operational subject matter experts or surrogate end users.
Translate customer intent into customer needs into user stories and epic descriptions, including value proposition, success criteria, acceptance criteria, expected effort and timeline, dependencies, risks, and preconditions for success.
Own day-to-day management of the Shoal 1 epic backlog across feature crews, including maintaining traceability with customer requirements, refining the backlog, and monitoring backlog updates.
Provide a product perspective to feature crews at Shoal 1-specific sprint planning and review ceremonies, by maintaining an integrated product map of epics, interfaces, dependencies, and program milestones.
Manage dependencies across shoals, and carry integration decisions and associated implementation implications through to the respective shoal or feature crew leads, or collaboration partner.
Support development and integration of the operator interface, primarily through the backlog, owning description, communication, and prioritization of epics.
Keep protected weekly hands-on time in the operator interface, so that HMI-specific epics and instructions can be written from first-hand use.
Support the platform integration crew in their interaction with vendors.
Act as translator across disciplines, normalizing preferred terminology and making specialist discussion accessible to the whole team.
Support other shoals through observation of operator-in-the-loop (OITL) activity and by providing feedback in review sessions.