Founding Engineer - Aerodynamics

Flyer Ai; Salisbury; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Significant equity

Immediate impact

Unlimited paid time off

Competitive salary

Job summary

Flyer Ai is seeking a founding engineer for Aerodynamics to drive innovative aerodynamic design decisions for our autonomous delivery drone. This role demands expertise in aerodynamic analysis and CFD, with responsibilities including designing low-noise propellers and ensuring high performance of prototype aircraft. As an early team member, you’ll have significant equity stake and the chance to shape our engineering culture from the ground up. Join us in Salisbury, England, and be part of this exciting journey!

Qualifications

• Strong grounding in aerodynamics and practical design decisions.
• Experience with propeller design and rotor aerodynamics.
• Ability to correlate analysis against real flight-test data.

Responsibilities

• Own aerodynamic thinking behind the aircraft's design.
• Develop quieter, better-matched propellers for prototypes.
• Collaborate with engineering team and test prototypes.

Skills

Aerodynamic analysis

Modelling

CFD

Propeller design

Critical thinking

Job description

Drive aerodynamic design decisions across airframe performance, low-noise propellers, CFD, and flight-test learning, turning first-principles analysis into better real aircraft.

Salisbury, Wiltshire On-Site Full-time

What you’ll be doing

As a founding engineer for Aerodynamics at Flyer AI, you will own the aerodynamic thinking behind our aircraft, from low-noise propellers and airframe performance to CFD-driven design decisions and flight-test learning loops.

This is not a purely academic role. You will use aerodynamic analysis to help us make better aircraft, better propellers, and better engineering decisions fast, then correlate that work against real hardware and real flight behaviour.

Our aircraft is a lift-plus-cruise autonomous delivery drone with unusually demanding constraints: low noise, good efficiency, practical manufacturability, and robust real-world operation. We need someone who is comfortable moving between first-principles reasoning, modelling and simulation, design trade-offs, and hands‑on collaboration with the people building and testing the aircraft.

In the near term, a major part of the role is helping us develop quieter, better‑matched propellers and making sound aerodynamic decisions on the D1 prototype. Over time, that work will feed directly into the design of our future production aircraft.

Where you’ll fit in

A small and focussed team has been developing our prototype aircraft for technical demonstrations and seed fundraising. Now in receipt of significant grant funding, Flyer is expanding the founding engineering team with critical roles.

You will join onsite, working directly with the founder and the expanding team to take Flyer from technical startup to global phenomenon over the next five years.

What we’re looking for

Team players who live our values: passion, commitment, courage, integrity, and trust.

Exceptional intelligence, first‑principles reasoning, and strong engineering judgment under ambiguity.

Strong grounding in aerodynamics, with the ability to turn theory into practical design decisions.

Experience in aerodynamic analysis, modelling, or CFD for aircraft, propellers, or closely related systems.

Ability to reason clearly about drag, lift, stability-related aerodynamic effects, and performance trade‑offs.

A fail‑fast, forward‑leaning mindset that takes measured risks to move fast.

Comfort working closely with real prototypes, test results, and imperfect data rather than idealised textbook cases.

Curiosity about using modern AI tools and coding agents as force multipliers, while keeping strong engineering judgment.

Experience with propeller design, rotor aerodynamics, or aeroacoustics.

Experience with low Reynolds number aerodynamics or small‑aircraft / UAV design.

Practical CFD workflow experience and awareness of its limitations.

Experience correlating analysis or simulation against bench, wind‑tunnel, or flight‑test data.

Familiarity with rapid prototyping and design iteration in a startup or R&D environment.

Familiarity with commercial / open source UAV flight controllers and firmware.

What you’ll get

Significant Equity – as a founding team member, you will own a significant stake in the future we are building.

Immediate Impact – you will be one of the first 6 employees, shaping the engineering culture from day one.

Competitive salary – an initial stipend plus salary uplift following Q1 2026 fundraising.

Unlimited paid time off – take what you need, when you need it.