Director, Engineering Excellence & Enablement

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: The Director of Engineering Excellence & Enablement is a strategic leader responsible for improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and execution maturity of the engineering organization. Reporting to the VP of Engineering, this leader partners closely with Engineering, Product, Program Management, and other cross-functional leaders to translate company and product strategy into scalable engineering capabilities, operational rhythms, and enterprise-wide initiatives.  This role is equal parts strategy, execution, organizational design, and operational excellence. Success is measured by enabling engineering teams to deliver predictably, operate efficiently, and continuously improve while maintaining alignment across the broader organization. 

What you'll do: Engineering Strategy & Organizational Enablement

-  Partner with the VP of Engineering to translate business and product strategy into engineering capabilities, operating models, and execution plans.

- Develop and evolve the engineering operating system, including planning processes, governance, decision-making frameworks, and organizational rhythms.

- Identify capability gaps and recommend investments in people, processes, tooling, and organizational structure.

Engineering Excellence

- Define and drive engineering excellence initiatives focused on developer productivity, quality, reliability, operational maturity, and continuous improvement.

- Establish engineering effectiveness metrics and dashboards that provide visibility into organizational health, delivery performance, and engineering productivity.

- Champion adoption of modern engineering practices, standards, and continuous improvement methodologies.

Operational Cadence & Execution

- Establish and facilitate consistent engineering operating cadences including strategic planning, quarterly planning, roadmap reviews, engineering leadership meetings, business reviews, and operational retrospectives/after-action reviews.

- Drive accountability for execution across engineering leadership while identifying and resolving organizational bottlenecks.

- Improve planning accuracy, prioritization, dependency management, and execution predictability.

Enterprise Engineering Initiatives