Staff Mechanical Design Engineer — Aerospace Systems Lead

Archer; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 209,000 - 219,000; Full time

Job summary

Archer in San Jose, CA is seeking a Staff Mechanical Design Engineer to lead vehicle packaging, thermal and weight balance analyses, and CAD development for next‑gen aerospace platforms. You will drive integration across mechanical subsystems, provide detailed drawings, and manage routing envelopes.

The role requires 5+ years in aerospace design, NX mastery, GD&T fluency, and extensive FEA/CFD experience; travel up to 10% is expected. Visa sponsorship may be available for qualified candidates.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Electrical Engineering.
• 5 years end-to-end aerospace product lifecycle experience including CoDR/PDR/CDR, manufacturing, qualification; designing and testing to DO160 and DO311 standards, and flight test.
• Experience designing metallic, composite, and injection molded parts; rapid prototyping methods (SLS).
• 5 years NX experience with large, complex assemblies and releasing drawings to ASME Y14.5 with fluency in GD&T.
• Special requirements: thermal analysis using 1D tools (Simscape, Amesim) and 3D CFD (StarCCM+, Ansys); proficiency in advanced FEA tools (NASTRAN, Hyperworks, Ansys).
• Travel 10% domestic travel.

Responsibilities

• Lead Aircraft Systems Architecture, including whole vehicle mechanical packaging, system level mechanical architectures, vehicle wide thermal and fuel systems, trade studies for optimal configurations, and requirements support.
• Drive Mechanical Design & Integration through management of top level CAD assemblies, interface control models, integrated airframe CAD development, detailed design of parts and subassemblies, technical drawing creation, and control of space allocation and routing envelopes.
• Conduct Engineering Analysis including thermal modeling, structural analysis, and aircraft level weight and balance modeling to validate packaging concepts.
• Support Prototype Build & Test by developing supply chain and procurement plans, contributing to prototype builds, creating verification test strategies, and performing test procedure development and execution.
• Provide Team Leadership through mentoring, lifecycle ownership, project timeline management, participation in design reviews, and cross disciplinary collaboration to solve complex engineering challenges.

Skills

NX

GD&T

Thermal analysis

1D tools

3D CFD

NASTRAN

Hyperworks

Ansys

StarCCM+

DO160/DO311

Education

Bachelor's in Mechanical/Aerospace/Electrical Engineering

Tools

NX

StarCCM+

Simscape

Amesim

SpaceNav/Nastran

HyperWorks

Ansys

Job description

Archer in San Jose, CA is seeking a Staff Mechanical Design Engineer to lead vehicle packaging, thermal and weight balance analyses, and CAD development for next‑gen aerospace platforms. You will drive integration across mechanical subsystems, provide detailed drawings, and manage routing envelopes.

The role requires 5+ years in aerospace design, NX mastery, GD&T fluency, and extensive FEA/CFD experience; travel up to 10% is expected. Visa sponsorship may be available for qualified candidates.