---
title: 'Product Strategy & Operations Sr. Lead, Advanced Programs (R6510) at Shield AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/product-strategy-operations-sr-lead-advanced-programs-r6510-shield-ai-dallas-vd10hj9e1qf7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-07'
---

# Product Strategy & Operations Sr. Lead, Advanced Programs (R6510) at Shield AI

- **Company:** Shield AI
- **Location:** Dallas, TX
- **Compensation:** $165k–$250k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-11-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/7d0600b2-8d89-4fef-863f-97ec4644f7bb

## 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.

What You'll Do: Partner with Capture Leads and business leaders to develop proposal strategies, win themes, discriminators, customer-focused value propositions, and compelling proposal narratives.

- Lead cross-functional proposal-related efforts spanning Business Development, Engineering, Program Management, Customer Engagement, Finance, Contracts, and other key functions.
- Translate customer mission needs, operational requirements, acquisition strategy, evaluation criteria, and technical constraints into compliant and persuasive proposal content.
- Establish and manage integrated proposal plans, schedules, compliance matrices, content plans, volume outlines, writing assignments, review cycles, production plans, and submission activities.
- Establish and maintain strong relationships with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
- Drive development of proposal artifacts across technical, management, cost, past performance, and executive volumes, ensuring message consistency and alignment with the capture strategy.
- Develop leadership-ready strategy presentations, pursuit-planning materials, internal decision-support products, and capture artifacts.
- Lead development of analytically rigorous responses to RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, white papers, capability statements, and other customer-facing materials.
- Facilitate and lead proposal reviews, including blue team, black hat, pink, red, gold, and executive reviews; prepare review teams; adjudicate comments; and drive corrective actions to closure.
- Monitor and help qualify relevant government and consortium opportunities through http://SAM.gov , customer distribution lists, industry channels, and consortium networks.
- Travel between Shield AI locations, partner sites, and customer locations as required.

Capture Operations:

- Track proposal and solicitation-response activity across the Advanced Programs portfolio, including milestones, owners, dependencies, reviews, risks, and key decision points.
- Develop and maintain capture trackers, reporting mechanisms, operating cadences, and dashboards that provide clear visibility into active pursuits and proposal progress.
- Support knowledge management and development of reusable capture tools, templates, content, and best practices.

Required Qualifications:

- Active secret clearance with TS/SCI eligibility.
- Bachelor’s degree.
- 12+ years’ experience in defense and 3+ years of direct proposal manager, business development operations, or capture manager experience, including large-scale defense prime proposals valued at $250M+.
- Proven ability to lead matrixed teams through complex proposal development cycles involving technical, management, cost, pricing, contracts, and executive stakeholders.
- The ability to convert customer mission needs and engineering solutions into clear, compelling proposal content and differentiated win themes.
- Demonstrated mastery of proposal compliance, customer instructions, evaluation criteria, proposal schedules, volume management, color-team reviews, production, and final delivery.
- Proven ability to influence and align cross-functional teams in a fast-moving environment.
- Exceptional PowerPoint, written communication, editing, and quality-control skills.
- Strong analytical and conceptual problem-solving skills, with the ability to structure ambiguous problems and translate complex information into actionable outputs.
- A high degree of ownership, sound judgment, humility, and bias toward action.

Preferred Qualifications:

- Active TS/SCI clearance and experience in advanced programs.
- Experience leading large defense-program captures as a prime contractor, particularly for weapons or similarly complex platforms.
- Demonstrated expertise in capture strategy, proposal strategy, customer engagement, competitive analysis, price-to-win, market analysis, and opportunity qualification.
- Experience working with non-traditional defense companies, rapid-acquisition pathways, prototyping programs, and transition-to-program-of-record strategies.

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.

## About Shield AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Shield AI builds AI pilots and autonomous systems for military aircraft to protect service members and civilians.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series G, venture-backed)
- **Headquarters**: San Diego, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Brandon Tseng, Ryan Tseng, Andrew Reiter

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Defense technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, aerospace
- Target customers: U.S. Department of Defense, allied nations’ military forces (B2G / Government)
- Mission or purpose statement: “Protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.”

## Products & Services
- **Hivemind**: A combat‑tested, modular autonomy stack for aircraft – self‑driving technology for drones, jets, and helicopters. Includes path‑planning, mapping, state‑estimation, computer vision, and reinforcement learning. Type: Software (AI/autonomy).
- **V‑BAT**: A vertical take‑off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial system (UAS) designed for persistent ISR and strike missions. Type: Hardware (drone).
- **X‑BAT**: An advanced unmanned aircraft system with extended endurance and payload capacity, built for multi‑domain operations. Type: Hardware (drone).
- **Hivemind Vision Systems**: Computer‑vision and sensor‑fusion capabilities integrated into Hivemind for GPS‑denied environments. Type: Software + sensors.
- **Hivemind Enterprise**: A deployable version of Hivemind for third‑party platforms and commercial applications. Type: Software.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company). Total funding raised: $3.6B (as of Series G in March 2026).
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue ~$21.7M (estimated, private) | Total Funding $3.6B (including $2B Series G led by JP Morgan Chase and Advent International, March 2026).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: JP Morgan Chase, Advent International, Blackstone, Riot Ventures, SnowPoint Ventures, Disruptive (55+ investors total). Strategic partners include U.S. DoD and allied defense forces.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 68.3% YoY to 1,283 employees; 338 active job postings (+57.2% YoY); operates in 5 countries (U.S., Australia, UAE, Norway, Ukraine); recent acquisitions of Sentient Vision Systems (2024), Heron Systems, MARTIN UAV.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Combat‑proven autonomy**: Hivemind has been tested in live military operations, providing a first‑mover advantage in contested, GPS‑denied environments.
- **Full‑stack integration**: Combines software (AI pilot), hardware (V‑BAT, X‑BAT), and sensor systems, creating a tightly integrated product ecosystem.
- **Cross‑functional engineering culture**: Engineers work across AI, robotics, aerospace, and defense – not siloed – enabling rapid iteration and field deployment.
- **Top talent pipeline**: Employees drawn from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Amazon, Anduril, and other leading defense/tech firms.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale AI pilots across all domains**: Extend Hivemind from aircraft to ships, satellites, and ground vehicles (“every military asset”).
- **International expansion**: Growing presence in Australia, Europe, and Middle East via mission autonomy centers and partnerships.
- **Deepen autonomy stack**: Continued investment in reinforcement learning, simulation, and computer vision to maintain leadership in contested‑environment autonomy.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission‑driven work**: Directly contribute to protecting service members and civilians with cutting‑edge AI and robotics.
- **Cross‑functional teams**: Engineers collaborate across disciplines (AI, hardware, software, systems) on real‑world defense challenges.
- **Benefits**: Excellent medical coverage, mental health EAP, paid parental leave, pet insurance, flexible work hours, gym discounts (SD) / on‑site gym (DC), free parking, competitive compensation, 401k with match, stock benefits.
- **Work policy**: Flexible work hours; some offices (e.g., San Diego HQ, Arlington, DC) have on‑site facilities. Remote/hybrid options available depending on role.
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapidly scaling (68% headcount growth) with hundreds of open roles across engineering, operations, and program management.

## Sources
1. [shield.ai/about](https://shield.ai/about/)
2. [shield.ai/careers](https://shield.ai/careers/)
3. [LinkedIn – Shield AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai)
4. [CBInsights – Shield AI](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/shield-ai)
5. [Lever – Shield AI Jobs](https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai)

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