Head of Product Design (R5776)

San Diego · San Mateo · Washington, D.C. · USD 230,000-420,000 / year · 10+ years experience · Onsite · Posted Sep 26, 2026

At a glance

Shield AI is seeking a Head of Product Design to lead user research, product design, strategic product leadership, and AI-native product design.
The role involves designing end-to-end workflows for autonomy development, simulation, testing, deployment, and operations.
The Head of Product Design will grow the product design function by mentoring designers, shaping design culture, and driving user-centered decision making.

Lead customer research efforts across product development, customer engagement, and solutions teams to identify pain points, workflows, unmet needs, and product opportunities.
Establish scalable mechanisms for gathering, synthesizing, and communicating user insights throughout the product development lifecycle.
Translate customer and operational feedback into actionable product recommendations, requirements, and design initiatives.
Design end-to-end workflows across autonomy development, simulation, testing, analysis, deployment, and operations.
Create intuitive experiences for highly technical users including autonomy engineers, software developers, operators, and mission planners.
Simplify complex system architectures, data flows, infrastructure tooling, and AI workflows into understandable user experiences.
Partner closely with Product Managers to shape product vision, roadmap priorities, and go-to-market strategies.
Establish and evolve design standards, design systems, UX principles, and product design best practices across Shield AI.
Grow the product design function by mentoring a small team of designers, shaping design culture, and staying actively involved in critical design work.
Design human-AI collaboration models that enable users to effectively leverage AI agents, copilots, and foundation-model-powered systems.

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 effectively collaborate 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 and workflows are still emerging.
Experience building and retaining high-performing design teams.
Strong portfolio showcasing both strategic thinking and hands-on design execution.

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 including testing, evaluation, deployment, and operations.
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, or high-consequence operational environments.

Bonus
Benefits
Equity
temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment for temporary employees)