Sr. Staff Engineer, Supply Chain - Mechanical Commodities; R6524

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 (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below).

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Shield AI is looking for a highly skilled, motivated Supplier Development Engineer to lead the technical development, industrialization, and performance improvement of suppliers for critical mechanical commodities. These include precision-machined components, airframe structures, landing gear, composites and propulsion/engine hardware.

You’ll be the main technical interface between suppliers and Shield AI’s Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Program teams. You’ll solve supplier problems that affect quality, on-time delivery, and scaling. You’ll onboard suppliers to new designs and lead them through qualification and production ramp‑up. This work is central to our mission of delivering affordable, autonomous mass at scale.

The role involves a lot of travel, up to 50%, including regular trips internationally to develop and build the supply base there.

• Lead technical development and performance improvement for precision machining, airframe structures, landing gear, composites and propulsion/engine hardware.
• Assess supplier technical capabilities, manufacturing processes, capacity, quality systems, tooling, workforce, and readiness for prototype, development, qualification, and production programs.
• Run capability assessments, manufacturing readiness reviews, process audits, capacity analyses, and onsite evaluations.
• Work with Strategic Sourcing and Engineering to select suppliers that meet technical, quality, cost, schedule, and production‑rate requirements.
• Identify, develop, and qualify new suppliers in Europe to grow the regional supply base.

• Lead industrialization: manufacturing planning, tooling readiness, process validation, capacity planning, qualification, and production ramp‑up.
• Support new product introductions, prototype builds, engineering changes, and rate increases, making sure suppliers meet all quality and delivery requirements during development.
• Review drawings, specifications, GD&T, bills of material, special‑process requirements, and statements of work with suppliers.
• Lead design‑for‑manufacturability and design‑for‑assembly discussions to improve producibility, lower cost, and shorten lead times.
• Review and approve process flows, manufacturing and inspection plans, control plans, PFMEAs, work instructions, and qualification documentation.
• Coordinate First Article Inspection under AS9102 and resolve FAI discrepancies and manufacturing nonconformances.

• Audit and embed in core supplier processes to find opportunities to improve cost, lead time, and quality.
• Lead onsite root‑cause investigations into defects, dimensional nonconformances, process variation, tooling issues, material shortages, and production constraints.
• Use structured root‑cause and corrective‑action methods, including 8D, 5‑Why, fishbone, and fault‑tree analysis.
• Apply lean manufacturing, process controls, mistake‑proofing, yield improvement, cycle‑time reduction, and production‑flow improvements.
• Give suppliers technical guidance on part specifications, manufacturing processes and standards, and quality measures.
• Ensur…