Staff Technical Program Manager (R5791)

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai https://shield.ai/. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai, X https://x.com/shieldaitech, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shield_ai, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Shield_AI. JOB DESCRIPTION: At Shield AI, we are revolutionizing defense technology with AI-powered autonomous systems. As a Technical Program Manager, you will lead the integrated execution of complex autonomy-enabled UAS programs from requirements through deployment. You will combine systems-engineering rigor with program-management discipline and scaled-Agile leadership to align multiple engineering teams, manage technical and delivery risk, and deliver verified capability to customers. This role is ideal for a technically credible leader with deep experience in system integration, requirements management, verification and test, integrated planning, and cross-functional execution. You will establish the plans, operating cadence, technical visibility, and decision mechanisms that enable teams to deliver high-impact mission capability predictably. What you'll do: - - Lead end-to-end execution of complex UAS, autonomy, mission-system, or customer-delivery programs, achieving technical, schedule, cost, quality, and customer objectives. - Own integrated program plans, including scope, milestones, schedules, critical path, resource needs, dependencies, risks, issues, decisions, and change control. - Partner with technical leads to ensure requirements, interfaces, verification plans, test readiness, technical baselines, and customer acceptance criteria are clear, measurable, and traceable. - Lead cross-functional system integration and test execution across hardware, software, autonomy, systems engineering, test, manufacturing, flight operations, cybersecurity, and field/customer teams. - Drive timely resolution of technical, programmatic, and cross-team issues; facilitate trade studies, risk mitigations, recovery plans, and leadership decisions when needed. - Establish and lead an effective multi-team delivery cadence, including integrated planning, dependency reviews, program execution reviews, system demonstrations, release-readiness reviews, and continuous-improvement activities. - Coordinate delivery across multiple engineering teams, releases, and customer commitments; identify and remove systemic blockers that affect integrated capability delivery. - Communicate technical status, risks, tradeoffs, decisions, and delivery outlook clearly to engineering leadership, executives, customers, and external stakeholders. - Develop and use program metrics and dashboards to improve execution predictability, integration readiness, requirements-verification status, risk posture, and release performance. - Mentor project engineers and technical leads in integrated planning, systems-engineering execution, risk management, and cross-functional delivery practices. Required qualifications: - - Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related STEM discipline. - Typically 8–12+ years of experience in systems engineering, project engineering, technical program management, aerospace, defense, robotics, autonomy, UAS, or a similarly complex technical environment. - Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional technical programs involving multiple engineering disciplines and delivering integrated products, capabilities, or customer solutions. - Strong systems-engineering experience, including requirements management, traceability, interface management, system integration, verification and validation, test planning/execution, and configuration or technical-baseline management. - Proven program-management capability, including integrated planning and scheduling, scope management, resource coordination, risk and issue management, stakeholder communication, and execution reporting. - Experience coordinating multiple Agile teams or technical workstreams toward shared releases, demonstrations, system-level milestones, or customer deliveries. - Strong written, verbal, and executive communication skills, with the ability to explain technical status, risks, and tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD security clearance. - Willingness to travel up to 25%. Preferred qualifications: - - Active DoD security clearance. - PMP certification, INCOSE certification, SAFe Release Train Engineer certification, or equivalent demonstrated experience in technical program, systems-engineering, or scaled-Agile leadership. - Experience serving as a Technical Program Manager, Release Train Engineer, Integrated Product Team lead, Project Engineer, systems-integration lead, or comparable cross-functional technical leadership role. - Experience facilitating multi-team planning, dependency management, program execution reviews, system demonstrations, release-readiness reviews, and continuous-improvement activities. - Experience with Jira, Confluence, Jira Align, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Azure DevOps, Jama, Polarion, DOORS, Cameo, or comparable planning, requirements, and systems-engineering tools. - Experience with UAS, autonomy, robotics, AI-enabled systems, mission systems, sensors, payloads, communications/datalinks, SATCOM, navigation, flight test, or fielded defense systems. - Experience supporting DoD, intelligence-community, aviation, maritime, international-defense, or othe