Simulation & Modeling Applied Scientist, Prime Air Flight Sciences High Fidelity Methods

About the role

Prime Air's Flight Sciences High-Fidelity Methods (HFM) team is seeking an outstanding Applied Scientist to develop and verify drone systems models and flight physics models. These models form the backbone of every flight simulation performed within Prime Air, directly informing aircraft design, system verification, certification, and business decisions. The HFM team's work enables prediction of critical vehicle performance metrics—including range, maneuverability, tracking error, and aircraft stability—and connects vehicle design and operational decisions to business outcomes such as customer reachability. Our models are also a crucial input to the design of flight control algorithms and software verification. Because the accuracy and reliability of these models underpin so many facets of Prime Air's mission, the scientist in this role will have broad, high-visibility impact on the program's success.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of simulation models—from development and deployment through verification and ongoing maintenance
• Gather downstream customer needs and select the most suitable modeling approach and level of fidelity
• Coordinate the generation of input data
• Manage model training, development and maintenance of software interfaces, and verification of model accuracy
• Determine the right modeling approach for a given physical phenomenon
• Design experiments to generate the data needed to build and verify models
• Apply uncertainty quantification and statistical analyses to validate model fidelity

Basic Qualifications

• PhD, or Master's degree and 4+ years of science, technology, engineering or related field experience
• Experience programming in Java, C++, Python or related language
• Experience with flight vehicle simulation development, aircraft system identification or simulation verification & validation (V&V)
• Solid understanding of software design principles

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with flight test planning, instrumentation and data reduction techniques
• Experience with high-fidelity aerodynamics prediction methods including wind tunnel testing, and computation fluid dynamics (CFD)
• Knowledgeable about fixed-wing and/or rotorcraft flight physics
• Experience with uncertainty quantification in the context of computational models