Director, Engineering Excellence & Design Standards

Shield AI•San Diego, CA

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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

Responsibilities

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