eVTOL Propulsion Engineer

EvTOL Mid-level (L4 equivalent) 2-5 years

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Joby Aviation

Archer Aviation

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Vertical Aerospace

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The job description

Tech stack. distributed electric propulsion, brushless DC motors, inverters, field-oriented control, propeller performance analysis, blade element momentum theory, XROTOR, dynamometer testing

About the role

You will join an eVTOL aircraft company to own the distributed electric propulsion units that lift the aircraft off the pad and drive it through cruise. This team sizes, tests, and qualifies the motors, inverters, and propellers that make electric vertical flight possible. Your work directly determines hover efficiency, one-propulsor-inoperative performance, and the acoustic and thermal behavior the whole vehicle inherits. Few roles touch as many vehicle-level outcomes as this one. You will split your time between design analysis, the test lab, and the test site, building the hands-on intuition that only comes from watching hardware succeed and fail under real load.

What you will achieve

Size and select motors, inverters, and propellers for a multi-rotor lift system that meets hover and cruise efficiency targets with margin to spare across the operating envelope.
Design and execute dynamometer and wind tunnel test campaigns that validate motor thermal limits and propeller performance from sea level hover to high-altitude cruise.
Cut propulsion unit weight by 10 percent or more through motor topology trades and integration decisions, without giving up reliability or fault tolerance.
Characterize failure modes of the distributed propulsion architecture, proving the aircraft maintains controlled flight after the loss of any single propulsor.
Deliver the propulsion performance models that the flight controls and certification teams treat as their trusted source of truth for control design and compliance. You will maintain them as a living dataset that tracks every hardware revision, so no team ever designs against a stale model.

What you will bring

Must-haves

2 to 5 years designing or testing electric motors, inverters, or propellers for aircraft, drones, or electric vehicles with hardware that flew or drove.
Deep understanding of motor electromagnetic design, including torque density, efficiency maps, winding schemes, and thermal limits.
Experience predicting and measuring propeller or rotor aerodynamic performance, and correlating predictions with test data.
Ability to read inverter control schemes such as field-oriented control and to specify controller requirements from them.
Hands-on test experience with dynamometers, load banks, or thermal chambers, including test planning and instrumentation.
Degree in electrical, mechanical, or aerospace engineering, or equivalent depth of practice.

Nice-to-haves

Experience with fault-tolerant distributed propulsion architectures and propulsor-out handling.
Familiarity with DO-160 environmental qualification for propulsion hardware.
Background in composite propeller or rotor blade structural design.
Knowledge of acoustic considerations in propeller design for urban operations.