Staff Electrical Engineer

Shield AI

San Diego, California on site Until 8/22/2026 5+ years exp H-1B sponsor history First posted December 21, 2025 Last posted December 21, 2025

Job description

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 an exceptional Electrical Engineer to join the team in building our next-generation autonomous aircraft. Joining now places you at the earliest stages of development, tackling open-ended design challenges that will shape the future of autonomous flight.

You will collaborate closely with other Electrical Engineers, Mechanical, Thermal, CAD, Hardware Test, Reliability, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and other cross-functional teams. This is an opportunity to shape our team processes and own critical aspects of our hardware development.

What you'll do:

Own full product and circuit design for flight critical subsystems. This includes analog, digital, high-speed, power, compute, sensors, FPGA, and other functional blocks as needed
Design for high reliability in challenging environments. Including temperature, altitude, radiation, and vibration
Full-cycle hardware development: Own the entire flow — concept, modeling, worst case analysis, schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, design reiteration for improving design maturity, testing and validation
PCB ownership: Drive PCB layout and design with ECAD engineers, optimizing for power density, EMI, thermal, and manufacturability
Design for Safety, Manufacturability and Reliability: Design robust systems keeping in mind best practices for safety, manufacturing and reliability
Board Bring Up and Testing: Execute board bring up, verification, validation and HALT testing to meet rigorous aerospace reliability standards
Cross-functional collaboration: Work closely with Mechanical, CAD, Embedded, Software, Production and various aircraft teams throughout the product lifecycle
Design review leadership: Lead and contribute to cross-functional reviews ensuring robust, high-integrity engineering decisions
Program execution: Manage project timelines, deliverables, and technical milestones to drive on-time, high-quality outcomes
Mentor and lead other engineers supporting your project

Required qualifications:

You have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
You have 5+ years of experience as an Electrical Engineer
You are experienced with: circuit design, schematic capture, component selection, circuit testing, circuit debugging, and system integration
You have a demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself and others to high standards, and being kind to others
Familiarity with Altium or equivalent
Ability to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance desired.

#LI-JM2

#LD

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.

###

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.

Compensation (from employer):
150000–220000 USD per year

About this role

Summary

Designs and develops flight-critical electrical hardware for autonomous aircraft.

Job title

Staff Electrical Engineer

Experience level

5+ years

Minimum experience

5+ years exp

Industry

defense-tech

Location requirements

San Diego, California; on-site work only

Salary

$150k–$220k

Visa sponsorship

H-1B sponsor history

Management role

Skills & keywords

Required skills

circuit designschematic capturecomponent selectioncircuit testingcircuit debuggingsystem integrationAltium

Preferred skills

high reliability designaerospace standardsFPGAthermal managementEMI

Specializations

circuit designsystem integrationpcb layouthigh-speed electronicsaerospace electronics

Locations

Structured locations inferred from the posting.

San Diego, CA, USA

On-site City