Negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV⁻) centers located a few nanometers below the diamond surface are key quantum defects for nanoscale sensing of external spins. However, the creation of shallow NV⁻ centers with high yield remains a materials challenge. Here, we demonstrate that high-angle ion implantation enhances the creation efficiency of shallow NV⁻ centers. By implanting ¹⁵N ions at angles exceeding 60^∘, we achieve high NV⁻ yields approaching 10% with effective NV⁻ depths below 10 nm. These yields are significantly higher than those typically reported for shallow NV⁻ creation. The enhanced NV⁻ yield is consistent with an increased vacancy-to-nitrogen ratio in the near-surface region, which is expected to promote NV formation during annealing. The created NV⁻ ensembles show coherence properties comparable to those of single shallow NV⁻ centers at similar depths, and allow detection of nuclear spins in van der Waals materials attached to the diamond surface. Our results establish geometric control of ion implantation as a simple and broadly applicable approach to engineer shallow vacancy-related quantum defects.