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 Structures Engineer is a senior individual contributor responsible for providing technical ownership of V-BAT airframe, structural, mechanical, and repair-related sustainment issues across the fielded fleet.
This role evaluates structural damage, wear, cracking, deformation, fatigue concerns, impact damage, hard landing effects, mishap findings, and recurring mechanical issues to determine appropriate repair, disposition, inspection, retrofit, or escalation paths. The Structures Engineer ensures structural repairs, service guidance, and configuration changes are technically sound, properly documented, and coordinated through the appropriate engineering and configuration control processes.
This role partners closely with Fleet Support, Sustainment Engineering, Product Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing Engineering, the Material Review Board, Configuration Management, and Operations to support safe, timely, and practical sustainment decisions that protect fleet readiness, customer support, and long-term aircraft serviceability.
The Structures Engineer must balance engineering rigor with field support urgency, providing technically defensible recommendations while enabling practical repair and return-to-service outcomes for deployed aircraft.
What you'll do:
Own technical evaluation of V-BAT airframe, structural, mechanical, and repair-related sustainment issues across the fielded fleet.
Assess field-reported structural damage, wear, cracking, deformation, corrosion, impact damage, fatigue concerns, hard landing effects, handling damage, and operational wear.
Evaluate structural findings from field returns, depot inspections, mishaps, maintenance events, manufacturing escapes, and recurring fleet issues.
Provide engineering recommendations for repair, rework, use-as-is, replacement, inspection, retrofit, or escalation based on technical risk and fleet impact.
Support Material Review Board activity by providing structural engineering input for nonconforming airframe, mechanical, composite, metallic, bonded, or fastened assemblies.
Develop, review, or approve structural repair instructions, inspection criteria, service guidance, and field or depot repair procedures.
Partner with Fleet Support, Quality, Manufacturing Engineering, Product Engineering, Sustainment Engineering, and Operations to resolve structural issues impacting readiness or customer support.
Support root cause investigations for structural failures, recurring mechanical issues, fatigue-related findings, or field-reported damage trends.
Assess whether structural issues affect aircraft safety, airworthiness, mission readiness, configuration, service life, maintainability, or customer operations.
Provide technical input to retrofit plans, design improvements, service bulletins, maintenance releases, and fleet-wide inspection or repair campaigns.
Ensure structural repairs, deviations, and design or configuration changes are documented and coordinated through appropriate configuration control and engineering change processes.
Review drawings, models, specifications, inspection results, test data, repair records, and field evidence to support technical dispositions.
Identify recurring structural or mechanical issues that require corrective action, design improvement, maintenance procedure updates, or fleet-level mitigation.
Support development of repair limits, inspection intervals, allowable damage criteria, and practical field maintenance guidance where appropriate.
Coordinate with manufacturing and depot teams to ensure repair methods are executable, repeatable, inspectable, and aligned with engineering intent.
Provide timely technical guidance to support urgent field, depot, or customer-impacting sustainment issues.
Support X-BAT lessons learned where V-BAT structural sustainment experience can inform future sustainment, design-for-maintainability, repairability, and lifecycle planning.
Required qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Structural Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
5+ years of experience in aerospace structures, mechanical engineering, airframe sustainment, aircraft repair, structural analysis, manufacturing engineering, product engineering, or complex hardware sustainment.
Demonstrated experience evaluating structural damage, mechanical failures, nonconformances, field issues, repair options, or fleet-impacting hardware concerns.
Strong understanding of metallic and/or composite structures, bonded assemblies, fastened joints, airframe hardware, load paths, fatigue, damage tolerance, structural repair methods, and inspection criteria.
Experience developing or supporting engineering dispositions, repair instructions, inspection criteria, rework plans, service guidance, or maintenance procedures.
Ability to evaluate field damage and recommend practical, technically defensible repair or disposition paths under time-sensitive operational conditions.
Experience working with Quality, Manufacturing Engineering, Product Engineering, Fleet Support, MRB, Configuration Management, or Operations teams to resolve technical issues.
Familiarity with engineering drawings, specifications, bills of material, configuration control, nonconformance processes, engineering change processes, and technical documentation.
Ability to assess structural risk in terms of safety, readiness, service life, customer impact, maintainability, and fleet-level exposure.
Strong problem-solving skills, including the ability to investigate ambiguous field reports, determine likely failure modes, and define next steps for inspection, analysis, repair, or escalation.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly document technical findings, repair rationale, risk assessments, and recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Ability to operate independently as a senior technical IC and drive resolution of complex sustainment issues without requiring close direction.
Ability to balance engineering rigor, configuration discipline, operational urgency, and practical field execution.
Preferred qualifications:
Experience with unmanned aircraft systems, aviation sustainment, aerospace manufacturing, defense products, fielded aircraft, or deployed hardware systems.
Experience with composite aircraft structures, bonded repairs, metallic airframe repairs, structural substantiation, fatigue evaluation, damage tolerance, or stress analysis.
Familiarity with MRB, RCCA, FRACAS, ECO/ECR processes, service bulletins, maintenance releases, depot repair, field repair, or fleet retrofit execution.
Experience supporting structural repairs, inspections, or dispositions in aviation, aerospace, rotorcraft, fixed-wing aircraft, missiles, robotics, or other high-reliability hardware environments.
Experience with CAD, PLM, ERP, finite element analysis, hand calculations, structural test data, inspection data, or failure analysis tools.
Experience supporting customer-facing or fielded product issues where technical recommendations directly affect readiness, safety, or return-to-service decisions.
Experience working in a startup, high-growth, defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or advanced manufacturing environment.
Advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Structural Engineering, or a related discipline preferred but not required.
