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. This role is responsible for transforming complex autonomy, robotics, AI, and developer workflows into intuitive experiences that enable engineers, operators, and organizations to develop and deploy resilient autonomy at scale. 

A major focus of this role will be shaping the next generation of AI-native and agent-driven workflows across the autonomy lifecycle. As Hivemind evolves from traditional software tooling toward AI-assisted autonomy development, simulation, evaluation, deployment, and operations, this leader will help invent entirely new ways for users to collaborate with AI systems, agents, and foundation-model-powered tools. The ideal candidate has deep experience designing AI products, developer platforms, or complex technical systems and can translate emerging AI capabilities into workflows that dramatically improve user productivity and outcomes. 

This is a highly hands-on role as this leader will manage a team of elite designers. During the first 6–12 months, most of the time will be spent conducting user research, designing experiences, prototyping concepts, facilitating product discovery, and partnering directly with Product and Engineering teams to define the future of autonomy development. 

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.