Manager, Environmental Control Systems & Thermal Engineering (R6306)

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: As Manager, Environmental Control Systems & Thermal, you will directly lead and develop a team of individual contributors responsible for environmental control systems, aircraft thermal management, and associated fluid and heat-transfer hardware on the X-BAT program, while supporting the advancement of these capabilities across Group 5 programs. You will be accountable for team execution and people development while maintaining enough technical depth to guide architecture, requirements, design, integration, test, supplier execution, and flight readiness. This position requires a balance of direct people leadership, technical judgment, and hands-on engagement when needed in a fast-moving aircraft development environment. The ideal candidate is an experienced engineering manager who can set clear priorities, grow strong engineers, create a high technical bar, and help the team deliver meaningful capability to operators quickly.

What you'll do: - People Leadership and Development: Manage, mentor, and develop individual contributors; set goals, give feedback, support growth, and build a high-trust, high-standard team.

- Team Planning and Execution: Set priorities, ownership, staffing, and execution cadence for X-BAT and Group 5 work; remove blockers and manage dependencies.

- Technical Direction and Review: Guide ECS and thermal architecture, trades, and design reviews across thermal environments, cooling, airflow, ducting, heat exchangers, fluid circuits, and related hardware.

- Requirements, Risk, and Maturity: Set expectations for requirements, reviews, verification, risk management, configuration control, and design release through flight-ready hardware.

- Vehicle Integration and Interfaces: Resolve interfaces with structures, propulsion, avionics, EWIS, payloads, manufacturing, systems engineering, and test teams.

- Test and Flight Readiness: Lead component, qualification, ground, and flight test planning; ensure data, anomaly resolution, and corrective actions support hardware delivery.

- Hardware and Suppliers: Set expectations for components, specifications, SOWs, supplier reviews, prototype builds, and acceptance activities.

- Hands-On Technical Leadership: Engage in first-principles analysis and root-cause investigations, coach engineers, and unblock complex technical problems.