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Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing intelligent autonomy systems, aircraft platforms (V-BAT, X-BAT), and simulation technologies to protect service members and civilians. The company operates globally with facilities across the US, Europe, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
As Head of Product Design, you will lead the design function and shape the user experience across Shield AI's autonomy development, simulation, testing, deployment, and operations platforms. You'll work with highly technical users including autonomy engineers, software developers, operators, and mission planners to simplify complex system architectures and AI workflows into intuitive experiences.
Key responsibilities include:
**User Research & Product Discovery:** Lead customer research efforts to identify pain points, workflows, and product opportunities. Establish scalable mechanisms for gathering and synthesizing user insights throughout the product development lifecycle. Translate customer feedback into actionable product recommendations and design initiatives.
**Product Design & User Experience:** Design end-to-end workflows across the autonomy platform. Create intuitive experiences for technical users. Simplify complex system architectures, data flows, and AI workflows. Own the complete user experience including training, documentation, tutorials, and overall workflows.
**Strategic Product Leadership:** Partner with Product Managers on vision, roadmap priorities, and go-to-market strategies. Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Design, and Executive Leadership through compelling narratives and prototypes. Advocate for user-centered decision-making in a technical, engineering-driven environment.
**Design Practice & Organizational Scale:** Establish design standards, design systems, and UX principles across Shield AI. Raise the quality bar for product design and consistency. Grow the design function by mentoring a small team of designers and shaping design culture. Champion design impact across the organization.
**AI-Native Product Design:** Define user experiences for AI-assisted autonomy development and operational workflows. Design human-AI collaboration models for AI agents, copilots, and foundation-model-powered systems. Partner with Product, AI Research, and Engineering teams to create new interaction patterns. Develop frameworks for trust, transparency, and human oversight in AI-assisted workflows. Help establish industry-leading design patterns for Physical AI platforms.
**Requirements:**
- 10+ years of experience in Product Design, UX Design, Human Factors, or related fields
- Proven track record designing and shipping complex technical products, developer tools, platforms, infrastructure software, data-dense applications, or enterprise systems
- Deep technical fluency and ability to collaborate effectively with senior engineering leaders on architecture, technical constraints, and software development workflows
- Strong experience conducting user research and translating insights into product strategy and design solutions
- Proven ability to influence product direction and organizational decisions without direct authority
- Strong understanding of AI-powered product experiences, including conversational interfaces, human-in-the-loop workflows, AI-assisted decision-making, and agent-based systems
- Experience defining new user experiences in ambiguous technology spaces where industry standards are still emerging
- Experience building and retaining high-performing design teams
- Strong portfolio showcasing both strategic thinking and hands-on design execution
**Preferred Qualifications:**
- Background designing developer platforms, SDKs, cloud infrastructure products, DevOps tooling, or engineering productivity tools
- Direct work on AI/ML platforms, MLOps workflows, foundation-model-enabled products, copilots, or agentic systems
- Familiarity with autonomy, robotics, simulation, digital twins, mission systems, physical AI, or related development workflows
- Portfolio examples involving command-and-control systems, mission-planning interfaces, operational dashboards, or real-time decision-support tools
- Ability to design across integrated hardware/software systems
- Domain exposure to defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or other regulated, mission-critical operational environments
