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Director, Avionics Engineering, V-BAT

Shield AI · Dallas, TX

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Level
Director+
Team
Manufacturing
Experience asked
10+ years
Industry
Aerospace & defense
Posted
30+ days ago

The role in 30 seconds

A director-level manufacturing role at Shield AI (aerospace & defense) in Dallas, TX. In this role, you will own the technical health and reliability of the avionics systems powering the V-BAT platform — leading the people, processes, and designs that take issues from field observation through root cause resolution and durable design.

They ask for
10+ years
Tools it names
Root cause, FMEA, Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), Tooling

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

Manufacturing Engineer roles in Texas: typical posted base $79k–$132k.

Median of the low and high ends of 33 live postings that list pay, out of 148 manufacturing engineer openings in Texas, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

Texas plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 147 other live manufacturing postings in Texas.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $79k–$132k, from 33 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (10+ vs 5+)

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • ✓ Tooling 57%
  • ✓ Root cause 51%
  • Lean 39%
  • New product launch 39%
  • Automation 34%
  • Six Sigma 28%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

It asks for 10+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Promotion path mentioned

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Manufacturing team at Shield AI

    We found 3 people at this company and state: 3 in this kind of role. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

    Write to Nicholas → (free)
  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
    • How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Shield AI in Dallas

15 other open roles at this site · 3 people we found in manufacturing roles at Shield AI.

All 16 roles at Shield AI →
Full description from Shield AIAs posted on their careers site.Show

What you'll do

  • ◆Lead and grow the team. Mentor and develop a multidisciplinary organization of electrical design engineers, root cause analysis engineers, and avionics build/test technicians, building career paths and technical depth across all three disciplines.
  • ◆Set direction and drive execution. Establish team priorities, allocate resources against competing demands, and drive execution while fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.
  • ◆Stay technical. Actively contribute to design development and reviews, hands-on root cause analysis, and the definition and validation of corrective actions — leading by technical example, not just management.
  • ◆Own investigations end to end. Lead cross-functional failure investigations, establish and verify corrective and preventive actions, and build tooling and infrastructure that accelerate debugging, test, and issue resolution.
  • ◆Improve system reliability. Drive coordination across Supply Chain, Reliability, Manufacturing, Quality, and Fleet Support to implement the processes and design changes that measurably increase the reliability and availability of the V-BAT system.
  • ◆Build the standard. Establish the standards, review cadences, and metrics (e.g., reliability growth, escape rates, time-to-resolution) that make technical quality repeatable and scalable as the program grows.

Required qualifications

  • ✓B.S. in Electrical Engineering or an equivalent technical field.
  • ✓10+ years of experience, including demonstrated success leading and growing teams of electrical engineers.
  • ✓Proven track record of building and scaling high-performing technical teams.
  • ✓Experience working cross-functionally across design, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, and fleet/field support.
  • ✓Proven ability to plan and execute complex electronic and electrical designs in a high-consequence industry (defense, aerospace, automotive, or medical device).
  • ✓Demonstrated ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-ownership development environment with rapidly evolving priorities.

Preferred qualifications

  • ✓M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.
  • ✓Experience with structured problem-solving and failure analysis methods such as fault tree analysis, fishbone/Ishikawa diagrams, FMEA/FMECA, 8D, or similar.
  • ✓Ownership of full product development lifecycles — from concept through release, production ramp, customer sustainment, and product retirement.
  • ✓Experience in UAV/UAS design or other autonomous or unmanned systems.
  • ✓Familiarity with reliability engineering practices (reliability growth modeling, MTBF/MTBUR analysis, accelerated life testing).
Show full description ↓

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

We are seeking a hands-on engineering leader to direct multiple teams spanning electrical design engineering, avionics root cause analysis, and avionics build/test operations. In this role, you will own the technical health and reliability of the avionics systems powering the V-BAT platform — leading the people, processes, and designs that take issues from field observation through root cause resolution and durable design improvement. You will operate at the intersection of design, manufacturing, quality, and fleet support, and you will be measured by the reliability, performance, and manufacturability of what your teams deliver.

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