Staff Power Engineer, Archer

$163.2-204k

Senior and Expert level
San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in San Jose, CA

Archer

Urban air mobility developer

Job no longer available

Archer

Urban air mobility developer

501-1000 employees

B2CSustainabilityTransportManufacturingFlightsAerospace

Job no longer available

$163.2-204k

Senior and Expert level
San Francisco Bay Area

Office located in San Jose, CA

501-1000 employees

B2CSustainabilityTransportManufacturingFlightsAerospace

Company mission

To accelerate the benefits of sustainable air mobility.

Role

Who you are

  • Electrical Engineering Degree or equivalent experience
  • 5+ years of relevant electrical system and circuit board design experience
  • Sound knowledge and hands-on experience in traditional and modern power electronic technologies including (not limited to):
  • Inverter technology for variable speed motor drive (MOSFET, rectifiers and gate driver PWM technologies)
  • Passive power devices, e.g. inductors, capacitors, resistors and transformers
  • Power electronics system architecture design and hardware integration
  • Motor drive and power converters (AC-DC, DC-DC, DC-AC) control technologies
  • Motor control and commutation methods for various types of three phase motors
  • Microcontrollers
  • Sensor technology and implementation
  • Gate drive design for wide bandgap devices (SiC and GaN)
  • Experience with 50kW-200kW inverters at 400V-1000V
  • Experience in using schematic capture and circuit simulation software (e.g. Altium Designer or Xpedition)
  • PCB layout experience is strongly preferred
  • Experience performing circuit design analyses such as worst-case circuit analysis, fault analysis, and lifetime estimation
  • Master of all types of lab instruments: oscilloscope, EMC analyzers etc
  • Excellent organizational and communication skills

Desirable

  • Hands on experience with DO-160G testing and DO-254 development
  • Ph. D. in power electronics
  • Embedded firmware development experience
  • Passion for aviation and eVTOLs

What the job involves

  • Design and develop high voltage, high power density motor controller for eVTOL applications
  • Responsible for all aspects of power electronics designs required in an all-electric aircraft, from components to circuits, modules and system integration
  • Passive component design and optimization in power electronics systems
  • EMC testing and analysis for various power electronics systems
  • Leads new designs from conception into production while working with a multidisciplinary team
  • Start to finish ownership of hardware – from specification to design, prototype, reliability validation and manufacturing
  • Design MOSFET gate drive circuit, electronic power supply and sensing circuits
  • Schematic, layout and PCB assembly design and review
  • Design and carry out prototype verification tests for proof of concept
  • Analyze test data and reports to determine if the design meets functional and performance specifications
  • Troubleshoot and help root cause any issues that occur in the prototype line

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Insights

Top investors

44% employee growth in 12 months

Company

Funding (1 round)

Jul 2020

$55.7m

SERIES A

Total funding: $55.7m

Our take

Electric air taxis may sound like a pipedream, but companies like Archer are in the process of testing models that they hope to begin producing at scale in 2025. Designed to be quiet and efficient, its current model can fly at speeds of 150 miles per hour and cover 60 miles per flight. With urban transport in mind, these air taxis are both greener and vastly more efficient than traditional vehicles.

Given the congestion and pollution issues that many cities are facing, it's easy to imagine such transport taking over. It’s also worth noting that although Archer plans to run them with human pilots initially, the company has automation as part of its long-term goals.

Other players exist in this space: EHang, a Chinese firm, flew its first aerial taxi in America in 2020. However, Archer has big backers and customers such as United Airlines (acting both as an investor and launch customer) and manufacturing partner Stellantis with whom it is mass-producing its flagship Midnight eVTOL aircraft.

There's certainly a growing demand for clean transport without sacrificing speed, but many barriers still remain in Archer's way as it must help to initiate a seismic shift in transportation infrastructure and behaviors to reach mass adoption. That being said, it has the funding behind it, raising close to $2 billion in post-IPO funding since 2021.

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Freddie

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle