Senior Staff Engineer, Fleet Support (R3670)

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Boston, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow on LinkedIn, X, YouTube and Instagram.

We are seeking a V-BAT Fleet Support Engineer to serve as the critical link between field operations and engineering teams. This role is responsible for capturing, analyzing, and escalating issues and telemetry data from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) deployed globally. The ideal candidate will combine technical acumen with strong communication skills to ensure rapid resolution of in-field problems and continuous system improvement.

What You'll Do:

• Collect and analyze telemetry logs, diagnostic data, and operator reports to identify trends, root causes, and areas for investigation.
• Act as the first line of technical support for UAS crews and customers, receiving reports of anomalies, bugs, or failures during operations.
• Prioritize and triage issues for internal engineering teams and provide field-ready feedback and recommendations for immediate mitigation.
• Serve as a key voice in fleet health monitoring, flagging recurring or systemic issues across multiple aircraft or ground systems.
• Collaborate with engineering and flight test teams to ensure that field issues are accurately reproduced, tested, and resolved.
• Maintain a real-time issue tracking system and help develop corrective action workflows for software, hardware, and integration-related bugs.
• Participate in technical debriefs, product feedback loops, and incident investigations to improve product robustness and mission success.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years of experience in UAS, aerospace, avionics, robotics, or field engineering support roles.
• Strong understanding of UAS system components (airframe, autopilot, avionics, payload, ground control systems).
• Proficiency in statistical and signal processing techniques to analyze telemetry data and system logs to identify performance or reliability issues.
• Excellent communication skills to bridge field and engineering teams effectively.
• Familiarity with issue tracking systems (e.g., Jira) and collaborative tools (e.g., Confluence).
• Familiarity with Python scripting.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior experience supporting tactical or military UAS operations or deployed field teams.
• Knowledge of Controller Area Network (CAN) communication protocol, network protocols and architecture, GNSS, datalinks, and avionics systems.
• Familiarity with Linux systems, or log analysis tools (e.g., MATLAB).

Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.