Vehicle Architect — Conceptual Sizing
About The Position
Archer is an aerospace company building an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a mission to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. We are designing, manufacturing, and operating an all-electric aircraft that can carry four passengers while producing minimal noise. As Vehicle Architect, you will own the overall conceptual sizing and configuration of a next-generation aircraft. You'll build and run the optimization models and tools that translate mission and customer inputs into a converged, weight- and performance-closed vehicle. You'll integrate inputs from the structures, powertrain, and aerodynamics architects into a unified sizing and optimization framework, lead configuration trade studies, and work directly with customers and partners to help shape missions around their needs.
Requirements
- Strong proficiency in Python is required, including building and maintaining production-quality analysis and optimization tools.
- Strong proficiency with multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) frameworks is required, for example OpenMDAO, AeroSandbox, SUAVE, GPkit, Dymos, or similar.
- Demonstrated experience sizing actual aircraft that have flown.
- Experience integrating multi-disciplinary inputs (aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, mass properties) into an overall vehicle sizing and optimization model.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting trade studies to both technical and customer/partner audiences.
- Familiarity with MIL specs and/or FARs.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with rotor and/or propeller aerodynamic and structural sizing.
- Experience with hybrid-electric powertrain sizing and configuration trades.
- Experience with electric propulsion systems (motors, inverters, batteries).
- Experience with conventional piston or turboshaft propulsion integration.
- Experience with payload and sensor integration (e.g., mission equipment, payloads, cargo).
- Familiarity with eVTOL, tiltrotor, or rotorcraft configurations and their unique sizing drivers.
- Experience with surrogate modeling techniques (e.g., interpolants, radial basis functions, Gaussian process regression, neural networks).
- Experience running analyses on high-performance computing (HPC) resources.
- Experience with geometry parameterization for conceptual design (e.g., parametric OML and/or structural geometry generation).
Responsibilities
- Build and maintain the vehicle-level conceptual sizing and optimization models and tools that translate mission and use-case inputs into vehicle-level sizing parameters (e.g. MTOW, empty weight, disk/wing loading, installed power).
- Own and evolve Archer's vehicle-level conceptual sizing and MDO methodology, integrating models from structures, powertrain, aerodynamics, and other disciplines into a unified optimization framework.
- Lead configuration trade studies across different use cases and missions, trading performance, weight, cost, and producibility.
- Work with product, systems engineering, and customers to help shape missions around customer needs, translating use cases into vehicle-level design drivers; support requirements definition.
- Own the vehicle mass properties rollup, sizing convergence loop, and margin management across the concept.
- Serve as a key technical point of contact with customers and partners; presenting trade studies, sizing rationale, and vehicle performance, and incorporating their feedback into updated mission assumptions.
- Support technical volumes, cost estimates, and schedule inputs for proposals and program/customer reviews.
Benefits
- We drive a pay-for-performance culture and reward performance that supports the Company’s strategy.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
