Staff Product Designer

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With nine offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Shield AI's technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn , X , Instagram , and YouTube .

Job Description:
Shield AI is looking for a Staff Product Designer to join the Hivemind team, focused on delivering exceptional user experiences across a suite of highly technical autonomy development tools.

In this role, you will tackle complex design challenges spanning the full product lifecycle—from development to deployment, testing, and evaluation of autonomous systems. Hivemind supports multiple user personas, including operators using ground control stations for mission planning and command and control, Test Engineers evaluating autonomous systems in simulation and real-world environments, and AI Engineers building and testing autonomy architectures

The product suite includes developer-facing tools (SDKs, CLIs) as well as web-based UIs for configuration management, scenario design, mission rehearsal, debrief, and test and evaluation. The design scope ranges from visual, immersive interfaces for operators to robust, extensible tools for engineers and testers.

We're seeking a designer who thrives in complex, technical environments and can collaborate across engineering, product, and test teams to create cohesive, intuitive user experiences.

What you'll do:

• Lead end-to-end design for high-impact product areas, from strategy and concept to final implementation.
• Drive and uphold design quality through strong ideation, systems thinking, and refinement of shared design standards.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Customer Experience to define product direction and user needs.
• Facilitate design strategy workshops and collaboration to drive alignment and momentum.
• Influence cross-functional planning, roadmap prioritization, and long-term product vision through design shaping rituals.
• Advocate for the user experience in company-wide discussions; help shape how product success is defined.
• Lead design reviews to collect feedback from engineering, product and customer surrogates, and align features and capabilities

Required qualifications:

• Bachelors in design, HCI, or demonstrated work experience at a comparable level of expertise.
• 7+ years of professional experience in product/UX design with a track record of shipped, user-facing products.
• A portfolio demonstrating exceptional interaction design.
• Expertise with modern design tools (Figma, ProtoPie, etc.) and workflows (design systems, component libraries).
• Experience leading product initiatives end-to-end - from exploration to final implementation.
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to scale and improve design frameworks.
• Excellent communication skills, able to clearly present design rationale to non-design stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications:

• Background in designing enterprise software and platforms.
• Experience designing developer-facing software tools.
• Familiarity with geospatial interfaces and complex data visualization or analysis workflows.
• Experience contributing to design systems and iterating with prototypes, A/B testing, or data-informed workflows.
• Passion for mentoring others and cultivating design team culture and process.
• Experience with automation, autonomy, self-driving, robotics, aerospace, aviation

$160,000 - $240,000 a year

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.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.