Senior Staff Lab Manager

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 an experienced Senior Staff Lab Manager to lead the design, development, operation, and long-term strategy of our engineering laboratories. This is a highly technical leadership role responsible for creating world-class lab environments that enable hardware and software engineering teams to rapidly develop, integrate, test, and validate complex systems.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with strong operational leadership, driving lab architecture, infrastructure modernization, asset management, and engineering support while leading a team of engineers and technicians.

What you'll do:

• Lab Strategy & Infrastructure

  • Own the overall vision, architecture, and roadmap for engineering laboratory infrastructure.

  • Design, build, and commission new laboratory spaces to support evolving engineering programs.

  • Define standards for laboratory layout, power distribution, networking, cooling, safety, security, and scalability.

  • Develop long-term modernization plans to ensure laboratory capabilities remain aligned with engineering needs.

  • Evaluate and implement new technologies, tools, and automation to improve laboratory efficiency and reliability.

  Lab Operations

  • Own day-to-day laboratory operations across multiple engineering disciplines.

  • Develop scheduling processes that maximize lab utilization while minimizing conflicts and downtime.

  • Plan and coordinate preventative maintenance, calibration, repairs, and equipment lifecycle management.

  • Manage laboratory uptime, availability, and operational readiness.

  • Establish operational metrics, KPIs, and reporting for lab performance.

  Engineering Systems & Integration

  • Support complex hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL), integration, and validation environments.

  • Develop laboratory standards for networking, compute infrastructure, storage, instrumentation, and data acquisition.

  • Partner with engineering teams to architect robust development and test environments.

  • Ensure laboratories support rapid system integration and reproducible testing.

  Leadership

  • Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team of lab engineers, infrastructure engineers, and technicians.

  • Recruit, mentor, and grow high-performing technical staff.

  • Prioritize work across multiple concurrent engineering programs.

  • Establish standard operating procedures, documentation, and best practices.

  • Foster a culture of safety, ownership, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.

  Collaboration

  • Work closely with Hardware, Electrical, Mechanical, Software, Systems, Manufacturing, and Test Engineering organizations.

  • Partner with IT, Facilities, Security, and EH&S teams to deliver reliable and secure laboratory environments.

  • Manage vendor relationships for laboratory equipment, infrastructure, and service providers.

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.

• 10+ years of experience supporting complex engineering laboratories or technical infrastructure.

• 5+ years of technical leadership or people management experience.

• Demonstrated experience designing and building engineering labs from concept through deployment.

• Strong understanding of laboratory infrastructure, including:

  • Power distribution

  • Network architecture

  • Server and storage systems

  • Instrumentation

  • Environmental controls

  • Safety systems

• Experience managing equipment lifecycle, maintenance, calibration, upgrades, and modernization.

• Experience supporting multidisciplinary engineering organizations.

• Laboratory infrastructure design and architecture

• System-level engineering and integration

• Networking (Ethernet, VLANs, managed switches, routing)

• Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and Software-in-the-loop (SIL) systems

• Asset management and inventory systems

• US Citizenship required due to security clearance requirements.
  Active Secret clearance.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience supporting robotics, aerospace, defense, automotive, or autonomous systems development.

• Experience with secure laboratory environments and classified or regulated development environments.

• Knowledge of systems engineering processes and system architecture.

• Experience implementing laboratory automation and infrastructure-as-code practices.

• Familiarity with cloud-connected engineering workflows and hybrid infrastructure.

• Programming and scripting experience:    

  • Python, MATLAB, C/C++, etc.

• Active Top Secret clearance or eligible to achieve

#LI-AD6

#LE

Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.