Sr. Manager, Field Applications Engineering - R3630

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), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, YouTube and Instagram.

As a Senior Manager of Autonomy Applications, you'll lead a team of applications engineers, providing expert support for customers using our SDK. You’ll prioritize and resolve complex issues, mentor your team, and collaborate with internal teams to drive product improvements. With your technical expertise and leadership, you'll play a key role in enhancing customer engagement and supporting the growth of our robotics and autonomy solutions.

What you'll do:

• Serve as the functional team lead for a team of customer facing applications engineers
• Guide, mentor, and develop a team of applications engineers to provide expert support and troubleshooting for customers
• Manage, prioritize and delegate customer issues
• Support BD in pre-sales and post-sales activities as a technical resource
• Ensure timely and effective technical assistance, troubleshooting, and onboarding support for customers implementing the SDK
• Maintain a deep understanding of the SDK’s features, updates, and use cases to guide the team and assist customers
• Oversee and contribute to the creation and continuous improvement of technical resources, such as user guides, FAQs, and knowledge bases
• Act as an escalation point for complex customer issues and provide hands-on support when necessary
• Coordinate closely with product development, sales, and customer success teams to ensure customer feedback informs SDK improvements and new features
• Act as a liaison between customers and internal teams to advocate for customer needs and communicate product updates
• Develop and grow your teammates through mentorship and training
• Set performance goals, conduct regular evaluations, and foster a collaborative team environment
• Develop and refine support processes to improve team efficiency, customer satisfaction, and response times.
• Track and report on key metrics related to customer engagement, issue resolution, and team performance to stakeholders.

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 10+ years of experience of industry experience
• 5+ years of experience in a customer facing engineering role
• 5+ years of experience as an engineering manager
• Strong technical background in software engineering
• Strong proficiency in writing modern C++ code
• Intermediate proficiency in writing Python code
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience developing software for mobile robot / autonomy applications
• Experience in the defense aviation or robotics industry
• Experience building and running a 5–7-person enterprise software applications/solutions engineering team

Our international team members are employed through our Employer of Record (EOR) and receive a comprehensive international benefits package on top of base salary. For full details on compensation and benefits, please consult your talent acquisition partner.