Senior Staff Engineer, Structures and Vibration

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 Linked In, X, Instagram, and You Tube.

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Staff Structural Analysis & Vibration Engineer to serve as the structural and vibration subject‑matter expert (SME) for V-BAT. V-BAT is a Group 3 vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft system in production and deployed with customers worldwide.

You will be the structural technical authority for V-BAT. You will own system loads, stress and dynamics analysis, vibration requirements and testing, and weight optimization.

This is a high-impact, company-level role. You will develop and define system‑level structural requirements, design criteria, analysis methods, and material allowables that will guide structural work across V-BAT. You will also mentor engineers in FEA and structural fundamentals.

This role is ideal for engineers with 12–15+ years of experience who have served as the structural lead or technical authority on an aircraft program.

• Develop and maintain company structural standards, including design criteria, factors of safety and margin policy, analysis methods, material allowables, and joint design practices.
• Own V-BAT system loads, and define structural requirements for subsystems, components, and suppliers.
• Lead and perform static, stability, modal, dynamic, and fatigue analyses of V-BAT structures using hand calculations and FEA (Simcenter).
• Lead composite structural analysis and define composite design requirements.
• Serve as the bolted joint expert for the program.
• Own vibration and shock environments. Assess existing profiles and use measured flight data to develop defensible test requirements.
• Define and improve vibration test requirements and processes, from test planning through verification, validation, and model-to-test correlation.
• Lead a program-wide weight optimization review of existing designs, and analyze new designs for weight efficiency and material selection.
• Review structural analyses, test reports, and design review content, and present findings to engineering leadership and customers.
• Mentor engineers in FEA and structural fundamentals, and build the team's structural analysis capability.
• Provide structural guidance on design changes and production issues as needed

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 12+ years of structural analysis experience on aircraft, UAS, or comparable complex system, including serving as a structural lead or technical authority.
• Experience creating structural design criteria, analysis methods, or engineering standards.
• Expert knowledge of structural mechanics and hand calculations, including strength, stability, fatigue, and structural dynamics.
• Expertise with FEA tools, preferably Siemens Simcenter (Nastran or Femap), or equivalents such as ANSYS or Abaqus.
• Significant experience analyzing composite aircraft structures and defining composite design requirements.
• Expert-level knowledge of bolted joint analysis and design.
• Hands‑on experience with vibration and shock testing, including test planning, instrumentation, and data review, plus working knowledge of MIL-STD-810.
• Proven track record of mentoring engineers.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

• M.S. or…