Manager Environmental Control Systems & Thermal Engineering

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.

• Communication and Accountability: Represent the team in program and engineering reviews; communicate decisions, risks, progress, resources, and dependencies.

Required qualifications:

• Clearance required: US Citizens Only & Must have an Active Secret or higher clearance.

• Experience: 8+ years in aerospace environmental control systems, thermal engineering, fluid systems, or comparable aircraft mechanical systems development.

• People Leadership: Experience directly managing and developing individual contributors, including setting expectations, giving feedback, and supporting career growth.

• Education: B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

• Core Fundamentals: Deep understanding of thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and aircraft thermal management.

• System Development Leadership: Ability to guide architecture, requirements, analysis, design, integration, and verification through hardware delivery.

• Technical Judgment and Communication: Sound engineering judgment, early risk identification, and clear communication across technical and program teams.

• Team Culture: Record of working hard, building trust, maintaining high standards, and treating others with kindness.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience managing engineers on UAV, autonomous aircraft, fighter, tactical aircraft, or other high-performance aerospace programs.

• Experience with Group 5 aircraft, aircraft-level thermal management, ECS, or integrated fluid and thermal systems.

• Hands-on experience with thermal and fluid testing, instrumentation, data acquisition, model correlation, or flight-test troubleshooting.

• Experience with first-principles analysis, fluid-thermal network modeling, CFD, or thermal-analysis tools such as FloEFD, STAR-CCM+, Thermal Desktop, Amesim, or Flowmaster.

• Familiarity with aerospace environmental, qualification, and airworthiness practices, including MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-516, RTCA DO-160, and SAE AIR or ARP standards.

• Experience with aerospace suppliers, COTS or custom components, technical specifications, SOWs, and prototype or vehicle-level test setups.

• Experience hiring, onboarding, and scaling a small engineering team in a rapid R&D or production environment.

• Advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.

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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.