Head of Product Design (R5776)

The Head of Product Design will define and lead the user experience vision for Hivemind, Shield AI's autonomy development platform. The role transforms complex autonomy, robotics, AI, and developer workflows into intuitive experiences. A major focus is shaping AI-native and agent-driven workflows across the autonomy lifecycle. This is a highly hands-on role managing a team of designers; during the first 6–12 months, most time will be spent on user research, designing experiences, prototyping, product discovery, and partnering with Product and Engineering teams. Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company whose products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies.

Responsibilities

Define and lead the user experience vision for Hivemind, Shield AI's autonomy development platform; Lead customer research and identify pain points, workflows, unmet needs, and product opportunities; Establish mechanisms for gathering, synthesizing, and communicating user insights; Design end-to-end workflows across autonomy development, simulation, testing, analysis, deployment, and operations; Create intuitive experiences for highly technical users; Own the end-to-end product experience including training, documentation, and tutorials; Partner with Product Managers to shape product vision, roadmap, and go-to-market strategies; Establish and evolve design standards, design systems, and UX principles; Grow the product design function by mentoring a small team of designers; Define the future user experience for AI-assisted autonomy development and human-AI collaboration models; Develop frameworks for trust, transparency, explainability, and human oversight within AI-assisted workflows

Requirements

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 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

Nice to have

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

Benefits

Bonus; Equity; Benefits (full-time regular employees); Temporary benefits package (temporary employees, applicable after 60 days of employment)