Senior Staff Product Designer (R3534) - Shield AI

Job Title: Senior Staff Product Designer (R3534)
Job Location: San Diego Metro Area
Job Listing URL: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/5da8fc89-3e41-4e08-ba5f-2c6f799c2d27
Job Description: Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent, autonomous systems. Its products include Hivemind Enterprise—EdgeOS, Pilot, Commander, and Forge—as well as V-BAT and Sentient Vision Systems (wide-area motion imaging software). With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X and Instagram.

Shield AI is looking for a Staff or Senior 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.
Mentor other designers through feedback, partnering and thought leadership.
Lead design reviews to collect feedback from engineering, product and customer surrogates, and align features and capabilities
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
Master’s in design, HCI, or demonstrated work experience at a comparable level of expertise.
8+ 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:
Prior experience in a Principal or Staff-level design role at a product-led company.
Background in designing enterprise software, 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