Senior Staff Engineer, Flight Control Actuation Systems (RX) (R5999)

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 a Staff or Senior Staff Engineer (L4/L5), you will take full technical ownership of flight control actuation system design for a Group 5 UAV fighter aircraft. You will work from first principles to define requirements, resolve actuator and integration trades, and drive qualified flight-control actuation hardware from design through production support. This position requires a balance of technical rigor, rapid decision-making, and hands-on engineering to efficiently transition concepts into operational capability. The ideal candidate is comfortable solving complex problems, taking ownership, working within an accelerated aircraft development environment, and is motivated by getting meaningful capability into the hands of operators quickly.

System Ownership: Define, allocate, and own the FCAS requirements and verification traceability matrix. Actuator Performance: Design and analyze control surface actuation systems, including sizing, dynamic response, bandwidth, redundancy, and failure modes. Control-Law Integration: Drive the control law-actuator interface with Flight Controls and Vehicle Management Systems, including actuator dynamics modeling and control surface authority requirements. Power and Thermal Integration: Drive actuator power source architecture and load analysis with EPS and hydraulic systems leads, and resolve actuator heat-generation and local thermal-load interfaces with thermal management. Structural Integration: Drive coordination of control surface hinge moments and actuator reaction loads with structures. Qualification and Hardware Delivery: Define and execute FCAS qualification test plans per MIL-HDBK-516 and MIL-STD-810, using test results to mature qualified flight-control actuation hardware. Program Execution: Lead FCAS design-maturity and qualification-status reviews at SRR, PDR, and CDR.

Clearance required: US Citizens Only & Must have an Active Secret or higher clearance. Experience: 8 to 15 years in flight control actuation system design on fixed-wing aircraft. Education: B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical discipline. Hardware and Supplier Execution: Proven track record sourcing COTS/custom aerospace components, driving suppliers to schedule, and assembling benchtop or vehicle-level test setups. Autonomy: Demonstrated ability to self-direct, prioritize technical tasks without oversight, and deliver functional hardware under tight timelines. Dynamic Performance: Demonstrated experience with actuator dynamic performance analysis, including bandwidth, response, stability margins, failure mode analysis, and redundancy analysis. Integration: Experience coordinating with flight controls and VMS engineers on actuator-control law integration. Standards and Reviews: Familiarity with MIL-HDBK-516 and MIL-STD-810 as applied to flight control actuation, and experience supporting SRR, PDR, and CDR on a DoD or fighter-class aircraft program.

Prior fighter or fighter-adjacent program experience, manned or unmanned. Unmanned or autonomous flight control experience, including the redundancy philosophy differences from manned aircraft. Experience with EMA or EHA control surface actuators.

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