Applied Scientist, Prime Air Flight Sciences Vehicle Design & Test

About the role

Join the Amazon Prime Air team to drive innovation in drone vehicle design and testing. You will develop, improve, and maintain multi-disciplinary optimization (MDO) tools to explore and prototype novel drone vehicle conceptual designs. Your work will support wind tunnel and other testing, ensuring integrated designs that meet performance, reliability, operability, manufacturing, and cost requirements. You will also own Flight Sciences assessments and analysis methods as the drone vehicle progresses through development stages.

About the team

Our Flight Sciences Vehicle Design & Test organization spans disciplines including Aerodynamics, Performance, Stability & Control, Configuration & Spatial Integration, Loads, Structures, Mass Properties, Multi-disciplinary Optimization (MDO), Wind Tunnel Testing, Noise Testing, Flight Test Instrumentation, and Rapid Prototyping.

Responsibilities

• Develop, improve, and maintain a suite of multi-disciplinary optimization (MDO) tools across all aircraft design disciplines.
• Explore new and novel drone vehicle conceptual designs in focused and wide-open design spaces to meet customer requirements.
• Prototype vehicle designs and support wind tunnel and other testing.
• Support the Office of the Chief Program Engineer and collaborate across vehicle subsystem teams to ensure integrated designs.
• Own Flight Sciences assessments and analysis methods for drone vehicle design through later development stages.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, or equivalent, with 7+ years of experience.
• Knowledge of programming languages such as C/C++, Python, Java, or Perl.
• Experience with flight vehicle design, simulation, and development.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, or equivalent.
• 5+ years of experience in air vehicle aerodynamic design, analysis, and testing (preferably electric propulsion vehicles).
• Wind tunnel testing experience.
• Propeller/rotor design, analysis, and testing experience.
• Experience using multi-disciplinary analysis & optimization (MDO/MDAO) tools and methods.
• Vehicle-level design intuition and ability to operate and analyze at the system-of-systems level.
• Specialization in one or more of the following domains: aerodynamics, performance, stability & control, propulsion, loads, airframe structures.
• Experience using tools such as modeFRONTIER, Model Center, OpenMDAO, or CATIA.

Pay

Base salary range: $167,100.00 - $226,100.00 USD annually (Seattle, WA). Your package will include sign-on payments, restricted stock units (RSUs), and comprehensive benefits such as health insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave.

Benefits

• Health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D, with options for supplemental life plans).
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Mental Health Support.
• Medical Advice Line and Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage.
• 401(k) matching.
• Paid time off and parental leave.