Shield AI
Staff Engineer, Structural Designer (R4937)
Seattle, Washington · Staff · Full-time · Posted Aug 25, 2026
- Experience
- 7+ years in mechanical or mechanism design for ground vehicles.
- Education
- B.S. in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering.
About the job
Designs and develops structural systems and mechanisms for Shield AI autonomous aircraft launch and recovery, from concept and analysis through prototyping, testing, and production release.
What you'll do
- Own structural design from concept through CAD, tolerance analysis, material selection, and drawing release; perform structural, kinematic, and preliminary FEA analysis.
- Prototype, test, and iterate mechanisms, and support pre-production builds, integration, and ground and flight testing.
- Collaborate across engineering and manufacturing teams on structural integrity, manufacturability, reliability, and design decisions.
What they ask for
- B.S. in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering.
- 7+ years in mechanical or mechanism design for ground vehicles.
- Strong CAD skills; NX preferred.
- Experience with kinematic analysis and optimization, structural analysis and FEA, GD&T and tolerance stack-ups, and materials selection.
Nice to have
- Experience with UAVs, aircraft, or robotic systems.
- Familiarity with electro-mechanical actuators; proficiency in FMEA, DOE, and root cause analysis; hands-on machine shop or mechanic experience; or structural, actuated mechanism, or MIL-STD-810 testing experience.
Tools
NX, FEA, FMEA, DOE, MIL-STD-810
AI focus
Contributes to mechanical design and development of autonomous UAV products; no specific AI development work is stated.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative