Lead and build the Aircraft Division Customer Success function for V-BAT and X-BAT customers. Own Critical Accounts Program, drive customer adoption, readiness, and mission value. Establish account health criteria, success plans, escalation and recovery processes, cross-functional operating rhythms, executive reporting, and permanent corrective actions to ensure long-term customer success and operational readiness.
Founded in 2015, 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 and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. 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.
Shield AI is seeking a Principal, Customer Success to establish and lead the Aircraft Division Customer Success function and own the Critical Accounts Program for V-BAT and X-BAT customers. This leader will ensure customers achieve mission value, operational readiness, adoption, and long-term success across the full customer lifecycle.
This role combines team leadership, customer success execution, executive account governance, operational awareness, and critical-account recovery. The ideal candidate has led customer-facing teams in aerospace, defense, aviation, complex enterprise, or mission-critical technology environments and can create repeatable customer operating rhythms while responding decisively to escalated, at-risk, or strategically sensitive accounts.
As the owner of the Aircraft Division Critical Accounts Program, this leader will establish clear account health criteria, executive visibility, cross-functional recovery plans, risk burn-down discipline, decision cadence, and accountable closure. This person will serve as a senior customer advocate and cross-functional leader, ensuring customer risks are surfaced early, resolved with urgency, and converted into lasting improvements across product, operations, training, sustainment, and support.
What you'll do:
- Establish and lead the Aircraft Division Customer Success function supporting V-BAT and X-BAT customers across U.S. government, allied, defense, and strategic commercial accounts.
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Customer Success Managers responsible for customer adoption, readiness, mission value, and long-term account success.
- Build and operate the Customer Success operating model, including account segmentation, customer health scoring, success plans, engagement cadence, executive business reviews, and lifecycle governance.
- Ensure priority customers have documented success plans tied to mission outcomes, readiness objectives, adoption milestones, sustainment needs, and executive stakeholder alignment.
- Establish clear ownership and operating rhythms across Customer Success, Deployment Operations, Flight Operations, Training, Sustainment, Program Management, Sales, Product, Engineering, Quality, and Mission Operations.
- Lead the Aircraft Division Critical Accounts Program for escalated, at-risk, high-priority, or strategically sensitive customers.
- Define and manage CAP entry criteria, severity levels, account health triggers, escalation paths, exit criteria, and executive reporting standards.
- Lead cross-functional critical account reviews with clear owners, decision logs, recovery plans, customer communications, root-cause analysis, and measurable closure criteria.
- Provide senior leadership with concise, action-oriented visibility into account risk, customer sentiment, mission impact, commercial exposure, and recovery status.
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, Training, Sustainment, and Business Development to drive permanent corrective actions and prevent recurring customer issues.
- Serve as a senior customer advocate for V-BAT and X-BAT customers, ensuring Shield AI understands customer mission needs, operating constraints, adoption barriers, readiness expectations, and growth opportunities.
- Translate customer feedback into clear product, support, training, documentation, sustainment, and operational requirements.
- Build scalable processes for onboarding, adoption, training coordination, operational readiness, sustainment handoffs, and recurring mission value reviews.
- Support strategic customer engagements, demonstrations, exercises, operational deployments, and executive briefings as needed.
- Own customer health dashboards, risk registers, executive reporting, account plans, success plan templates, CAP dashboards, and operating metrics.
- Define and track indicators such as mission readiness, adoption, training progress, fleet availability, support responsiveness, issue aging, customer sentiment, renewal or expansion risk, and executive engagement health.
- Build a culture of urgency, ownership, operational excellence, professionalism, transparency, and customer advocacy across the Customer Success team.
Required qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in customer success, customer operations, account management, program management, field operations, professional services, aviation operations, defense technology, aerospace, or mission-critical enterprise technology.
- 10+ years of experience leading customer-facing teams or managing customer success, account management, support, field operations, or program teams.
- Demonstrated experience managing escalated, at-risk, executive-level, or mission-critical customer accounts.
- Experience operating structured escalation, customer health, critical account, executive governance, or customer recovery processes.
- Strong executive presence and ability to communicate clearly with senior military, government, enterprise, and internal executive stakeholders.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity, urgency, conflict, and high operational stakes.
- Strong understanding of customer lifecycle management, adoption, sustainment, readiness, support, renewals, and expansion motions.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including executive briefings, account plans, recovery plans, and leadership updates.
- Ability to travel up to 15% and work effectively with customers and teams in operational, field, and headquarters environments.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience in defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, aviation, UAS, software-defined systems, military operations, or operational technology deployed in austere environments.
- Experience supporting Department of Defense, U.S. military services, allied defense customers, or government customers.
- Experience with VTOL UAS, aviation operations, ISR, mission systems, autonomy, deployed operations, aircraft sustainment, or mission-critical field operations.
- Prior military service or direct experience working with operational military units.
- Experience with structured Critical Accounts Programs, enterprise escalation frameworks, technical account management, customer success operations, or executive sponsor programs.
- Familiarity with Salesforce, Gainsight, Jira, Confluence, Tableau, Power BI, or similar customer success, support, and reporting systems.
- Active Secret or Top Secret clearance.
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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.
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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.
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