Senior Staff Engineer, Structural Analysis - Ranger (R6369)

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:

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Staff Structural Analyst to provide advanced technical leadership in the structural analysis and validation of next-generation UAV platforms. In this role, you will serve as a senior subject-matter expert for airframe structures, leading complex analysis efforts, supporting test correlation, and ensuring structural integrity across development, flight test, and production.

This role is ideal for engineers with 12–15+ years of experience who have led major structural workstreams on aerospace programs and are comfortable owning analysis execution, mentoring engineers, and influencing key design tradeoffs within a program.

What you'll do:

Lead structural analysis efforts for UAV airframes, major substructures, and critical components within a program scope.

Define and execute finite element modeling approaches, load cases, assumptions, and margin assessments.

Perform and oversee static, modal, fatigue, vibration, and damage-tolerance analyses.

Establish sound practices for hand calculations, model validation, and analysis-to-test correlation.

Drive structural optimization across performance, weight, cost, and manufacturability targets.

Support structural test strategy, including defining