Assistant Product Owner, CCA Mission Autonomy (Platform Integration) (R5849)
About this role
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company focused on developing intelligent systems to protect service members and civilians. The company’s technology portfolio includes Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies, supporting global operations. This role is central to ensuring that the platform integration efforts for the CCA program office are effectively managed and aligned with customer needs. The Assistant Product Owner will bridge the gap between customer requirements from various stakeholders and the execution needs of the feature development teams.
This individual will be responsible for translating complex customer intent into actionable user stories and epics, defining clear success criteria, and managing the backlog for the Shoal 1 epic. A key function involves maintaining a holistic product perspective, tracking dependencies across different shoals, and ensuring integration decisions are communicated clearly to development crews. The role exists to provide necessary product oversight and translation skills within a complex, multi-disciplinary engineering environment.
Candidates who excel in synthesizing diverse technical requirements, acting as a translator between operational experts and engineering teams, and thrive in ambiguous environments will be well-suited for this position. Success in this role requires strong analytical skills combined with the ability to communicate technical details clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
What you will do
- Work with the Product Owner and Chief Engineer to understand customer product needs across the CCA program office, platform providers, and operational end users to determine priorities.
- Elicit and validate needs and priorities from customers, official guidance, and operational subject matter experts to define scope.
- Translate customer intent into detailed user stories and epic descriptions, including defining value propositions, success criteria, effort, and risks.
- Own the day-to-day management of the Shoal 1 epic backlog, ensuring traceability to customer requirements and monitoring scope changes.
- Provide a product perspective during sprint planning and review ceremonies by maintaining an integrated product map of epics and dependencies.
- Manage dependencies across shoals and relay integration decisions to feature crew leads or collaboration partners.
- Support the development and integration of the operator interface by managing requirements within the backlog.
- Act as a translator across disciplines to normalize terminology and ensure consistent communication across the team.
What you need
- A Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, aerospace engineering, cognitive systems engineering, human factors, or a related technical field, or equivalent military or operational experience is required.
- Candidates must possess three or more years of experience in product ownership or a related field, such as customer experience or systems engineering for complex software or aerospace systems.
- Hands-on proficiency with Jira and Confluence is necessary, including demonstrated experience authoring and managing epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria in an agile setting.
- The role requires a demonstrated ability to maintain an integrated view of a complex product across distributed documentation and multiple engineering disciplines.
- A willingness to become a hands-on user of the operator interface, independently installing, configuring, and running mission scenarios is expected.
- Working technical fluency in areas such as mission autonomy, autonomous systems, flight software, ground control systems, or HMIs, or avionics interfaces is essential.
- Exceptional written and oral communication skills are needed to translate technical information accurately across various audiences.
- Strong problem-solving skills, including sound decision-making under ambiguity with minimal supervision, are necessary.
Nice to have
- Experience supporting a U.S. Air Force, Navy, or joint aviation program of record involving uncrewed or autonomous collaborative platforms
- Familiarity with the A-GRA, A-GRI, UCI messaging, or other modular open systems architectures
- Experience with airworthiness, functional safety, or assurance-driven software processes and certification
Benefits
- Offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the remote policy for this role?
The posting does not explicitly detail a remote work policy for this position.
What is the compensation structure for this role?
The posting does not provide specific salary details for this position.
What technologies will I be working with daily?
The required technical fluency involves mission autonomy, autonomous systems, flight software, ground control systems, or HMIs, or avionics interfaces.
What is the team structure like?
The role involves collaboration with the Product Owner, Chief Engineer, Shoal Lead, and feature crews, as well as supporting other shoals like Systems Engineering and T&E.
How is the hiring process structured?
The posting describes the required qualifications and responsibilities necessary for success in the role.