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. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Job Description:
The Configuration and Change Control Manager is a senior individual contributor responsible for owning configuration discipline for the fielded V-BAT fleet, including aircraft, payloads, software, ground equipment, support equipment, and customer-specific configurations.
This role ensures Shield AI maintains an accurate, traceable, and controlled understanding of what hardware, software, payload, and ground system configurations are deployed, which changes apply to which aircraft or customers, and how approved fixes, retrofits, releases, and service actions are controlled through execution.
This position is critical to preventing configuration confusion across aircraft serial numbers, hardware revisions, software versions, payload variants, ground equipment configurations, fielded modifications, maintenance releases, and customer-specific baselines. The Configuration and Change Control Manager partners closely with Fleet Support, Sustainment Engineering, Product Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Customer Success, Operations, and Configuration Management to ensure changes are documented, approved, communicated, traceable, and deployed to the correct assets.
The role requires strong process discipline, technical fluency, attention to detail, and the ability to drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.
What you'll do:
Own and maintain the V-BAT fielded and as-maintained configuration baseline for aircraft, payloads, software, ground equipment, support equipment, and related sustainment assets.
Track aircraft serial numbers, hardware revisions, software versions, payload configurations, ground system configurations, fielded modifications, retrofit status, and customer-specific baselines.
Manage the change control process for fielded V-BAT systems, ensuring approved changes are controlled, traceable, and applied to the correct aircraft, customers, and configurations.
Support Engineering Change Requests, Engineering Change Orders, change impact assessments, release readiness reviews, retrofit plans, and service action planning.
Ensure fielded fixes, retrofits, software updates, hardware changes, payload changes, and service actions are tied to the correct serial numbers, configurations, customers, and effectivity ranges.
Maintain configuration records for deployed aircraft, spares, payloads, ground equipment, support equipment, and field-modified assets.
Partner with Fleet Support, Sustainment Engineering, Product Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Customer Success, Operations, and Configuration Management to control changes across the V-BAT fleet.
Support release readiness reviews for software, hardware, payload, ground system, maintenance, and support equipment updates.
Ensure changes are documented, approved, communicated, implemented, and traceable from engineering approval through field deployment.
Maintain a clear view of which customers, aircraft, payloads, ground systems, spares, and support equipment are affected by each change.
Define and maintain change effectivity logic, including serial number applicability, build applicability, customer applicability, configuration applicability, and retrofit applicability.
Coordinate with Product Engineering and Sustainment Engineering to understand technical change intent, required implementation steps, and field impact.
Coordinate with Fleet Support and Customer Success to ensure field teams understand which updates, inspections, retrofits, or service actions apply to each customer asset.
Coordinate with Manufacturing, Quality, and Supply Chain to ensure production records, nonconformance records, part revisions, supplier changes, and field configurations remain aligned.
Identify configuration gaps, data inconsistencies, undocumented modifications, incomplete retrofit records, and risks to fielded fleet traceability.
Escalate configuration risks that could affect fleet readiness, customer support, release execution, repair decisions, or technical troubleshooting.
Support audits, reviews, and investigations requiring accurate configuration history, change history, serial number traceability, or fielded asset applicability.
Improve configuration management processes, change control mechanisms, release tracking, field modification tracking, and reporting tools as the sustainment function scales.
Provide leadership updates on configuration health, change control status, open risks, affected assets, and field deployment progress.
Required qualifications:
6+ years of experience in configuration management, change control, aviation sustainment, hardware/software product support, manufacturing operations, product lifecycle management, engineering operations, or complex hardware sustainment.
Demonstrated experience managing configuration baselines, revision control, change effectivity, fielded asset records, engineering change processes, or product release control in a complex technical environment.
Strong understanding of configuration baselines, as-built records, as-maintained records, revision control, serial number traceability, effectivity management, and engineering change control.
Experience supporting Engineering Change Requests, Engineering Change Orders, release readiness reviews, retrofit planning, service actions, or fielded product updates.
Experience tracking or managing hardware revisions, software versions, payload configurations, ground equipment configurations, customer-specific configurations, or deployed asset baselines.
Ability to determine which aircraft, systems, customers, configurations, or serial numbers are affected by a given change, issue, release, retrofit, or service action.
Experience working across Product Engineering, Sustainment Engineering, Fleet Support, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Operations, Customer Success, and Configuration Management teams.
Strong technical fluency with bills of material, part revisions, drawings, software releases, hardware changes, configuration records, product structures, or fielded system documentation.
Strong process discipline and attention to detail, with the ability to maintain accurate records across multiple systems, stakeholders, and changing priorities.
Ability to identify configuration risks, traceability gaps, undocumented changes, incomplete records, and process breakdowns before they affect fleet readiness or customer support.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly communicate change applicability, implementation status, configuration risks, and decision needs.
Ability to operate independently as a senior IC and drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.
Ability to balance configuration rigor with field support urgency, release timelines, customer needs, and operational realities.
Preferred qualifications:
Experience with aviation, defense, unmanned systems, robotics, aerospace manufacturing, complex hardware/software products, or deployed technical systems.
Familiarity with PLM, ERP, MES, CMMS, service management systems, requirements systems, software release systems, or configuration management databases.
Experience with aircraft serial number tracking, software release management, payload configuration management, ground system configuration, depot repair records, or field modification tracking.
Experience with ECO/ECR processes, MRB, FRACAS, RCCA, service bulletins, maintenance releases, retrofit campaigns, or fleet-wide service actions.
Familiarity with configuration audits, physical configuration audits, functional configuration audits, controlled baselines, product structures, or digital thread concepts.
Experience supporting military, defense, aviation, or high-reliability customer environments where configuration accuracy affects safety, readiness, supportability, or contractual commitments.
Experience working in a startup, high-growth, defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or advanced manufacturing environment.
CM2, CMII, PMP, Lean Six Sigma, APICS, aviation maintenance, systems engineering, or related certification preferred but not required.
