Analyst, International Market Intelligence — X-BAT

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, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. 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.  Job Description: The International Market Intelligence Analyst develops and maintains consistent, decision-ready budget and competitive information for international autonomous combat aircraft markets. The role supports GTM leads and Mission Success with current evidence on funding, programs, competitors, acquisition pathways, and industrial expectations.  This is a cumulative knowledge role that brings together two related analytic disciplines. The analyst maintains structured international budget and competitive data, applies established methods to heterogeneous public and commercial sources, and produces recurring country and regional reads for priority markets.  Regional and country GTM leads own their customers, captures, and win strategies. This role supports those leads with the budget and competitive evidence needed to shape pursuits and inform capture strategies. It does not own Price-to-Win, final pricing posture, customer engagement, or execution of customer-funded programs. What you'll do:

Maintain international budget coverage. Track partner-nation defense budgets, relevant program lines, and multi-year procurement and sustainment plans for priority autonomous combat aircraft markets.

Maintain international competitive coverage. Keep competitor profiles, competition and award trackers, product comparisons, and teaming and industrial-partnership maps current for assigned countries and regions.

Develop integrated country and regional reads. Combine budget and competitive data into decision-ready products covering funding, timing, competitors, acquisition path, and industrial expectations for GTM and Mission Success teams.

Work from primary sources. Collect and extract data from defense budgets, white papers, parliamentary and legislative records, procurement notices, and reputable open-source reporting, supplemented by commercial market data when available.

Curate the knowledge base. Maintain a structured, cumulative, and queryable international budget and competitive knowledge base using AI-enabled tools for ingestion, organization, and upkeep.

Publish on cadence and on demand. Deliver recurring updates and respond to scoped rapid-turn requests supporting pursuits, campaign reviews, proposal inputs, and leadership decisions.

Track market developments. Monitor programs, competitions, awards, teaming, industrial partnerships, offsets, and co-production developments in assigned markets and elevate material changes.

Support the international campaign system. Provide reliable inputs that help country and regional leads shape pursuits, identify intelligence gaps, and establish collection priorities.

Support a culture of accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Decision rights and interfaces:

This role is accountable for the quality, currency, and consistency of assigned international budget and competitive data; recurring country and regional products; maintenance of the international knowledge base; and timely response to scoped analytic requests.

Regional, country, and opportunity GTM leads are accountable for customer relationships, in-country strategy, partner and industrial development, win strategy, pricing posture, proposal content, and the bid/no-bid recommendation for their pursuits.

The designated Price-to-Win lead and responsible GTM and pricing leaders are accountable for PTW positions and final pricing posture. This role provides relevant international budget and competitive evidence but does not perform or own PTW.

The U.S. Market Intelligence & Price-to-Win role is accountable for the U.S. market picture and coordinates common methods and knowledge standards with this role.

Government Relations, Export, Legal, and Contracts are accountable for interagency and embassy engagement, export authorizations, disclosure determinations, legal positions, and contracting terms.

Engineering and Product are accountable for technical solution definition, configuration decisions, and performance commitments.

External customer engagement by this role is in support of, and at the invitation of, the responsible GTM lead.

Required qualifications:

3–6 years of relevant experience in international defense budget analysis, competitive intelligence, market research, business development analysis, or closely related work in defense or aerospace.

Working knowledge of international defense budgets and public budget documentation, with the ability to extract useful signal from incomplete and heterogeneous sources.

Experience conducting competitive or market analysis, including competitor profiles, market assessments, or product comparisons.

Working familiarity with international defense acquisition and pursuit dependencies, including FMS, DCS, or hybrid pathways and associated approval, disclosure, and exportability considerations.

Strong research, data-handling, analytic writing, and briefing skills, with the ability to produce clear products for senior and non-specialist audiences.

Ability to manage recurring production while responding to short-notice, well-scoped internal requests.

Experience using AI tools to organize and maintain structured, reusable knowledge resources.

Bachelor's degree in international affairs, security studies, economics, finance, political science, business, engineering, or a related field.

Demonstrated alignment with Shield AI core values: Do What Honor Dictates, Live as a Servant Leader, Pursue Excellence.

Ability to travel domestically and internationally as required and to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Preferred qualifications:

Experience supporting defense business development, capture, or strategy.

Exposure to large UAV, unmanned, or autonomous aircraft programs.

Familiarity with offset, co-production, or industrial-participation frameworks in one or more priority markets.

Regional expertise or language skills relevant to Europe, the Middle East, or Asia-Pacific.

Familiarity with foreign disclosure, security cooperation, embassy or country-team coordination, or interagency advocacy.

Success in this role:

Country and regional GTM leads and Mission Success have current, reliable, and consistent budget and competitive information for priority autonomous combat aircraft markets.

Country and regional products are delivered on cadence, use traceable sources, and identify material gaps or uncertainty.

Budget and competitive context is present early enough to help shape pursuits and inform capture strategies rather than being appended after key decisions.

The international knowledge base grows in coverage and quality quarter over quarter, and recurring questions take less time to answer.

Material funding shifts, competitor moves, and industrial dynamics in assigned markets are identified and elevated in time for the campaign system to respond.

#LI-KC5 #LC 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.   ###   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.