
Vertical Aerospace · Bristol
Our Mission At Vertical Aerospace, we are pioneering the way for electric aviation. The Valo, our eVTOL (electric, vertical, take-off and landing), 'zero emis...
Our Mission
At Vertical Aerospace, we are pioneering the way for electric aviation. The Valo, our eVTOL (electric, vertical, take-off and
landing), 'zero emissions' aircraft will set a new safety standard for how we will navigate the sky.
We won't realise our mission following the same legacy processes and traditions our predecessors followed, instead, we want to
'redefine' aerospace best practices. We are growing quickly from a prototype business to a scaling SME, and the next few years
will be critical to our success and delivering on our ambitious goals. Valo is targeting airliner-level safety certification in
2029 ahead of entering service with our airline and operator customers.
As Principal Loads & Aeroelasticity Engineer, you will report to the Loads & Dynamics Team Lead and act as a senior technical
authority within the team. You will lead the definition, development, validation and certification support of aircraft loads and
aeroelastic models, with a strong focus on model integrity, automation and scalable analysis capability.
You will be responsible for ensuring that loads and aeroelastic requirements are robustly defined, demonstrated through credible
analysis and supported by clear certification evidence. Working at aircraft level, you will drive the integration of structures,
aerodynamics and control systems, ensuring that analysis methods are technically robust, repeatable and traceable throughout the
aircraft development lifecycle.
A key aspect of the role is ownership and development of aircraft-level modelling capability, including reduced-order structural
models used to support loads, aeroelasticity and certification activities. You will play a leading role in model validation,
correlation and continuous improvement, ensuring models remain representative as aircraft designs evolve.
While this is not a formal line management role, you will mentor engineers within the Loads & Dynamics discipline, set technical
standards and help shape the future direction of the function.
aircraft level
and aeroelastic analysis
data
stability
What can you expect from us?
We're on a mission. Where others see limits, we see opportunity, and we work at pace. Working at Vertical isn't your average role
but for those seeking a challenge, a flexible, supportive organisation and an incredible team; working here is an opportunity to
do the best work of your career.
Our approach promotes ingenuity and courage, while our environment builds success through diligence in safety and being open in
the way we work. The only way we're going to assure the next chapter of aviation history is by working as a team, relentlessly,
towards our goal.
Our benefits
Our people matter - we're not going anywhere without them. Which is why our company benefits go beyond the essentials.
We may just be the hardest job you've ever had, but we're confident it will be the most rewarding. Join the team today and help us
shape the future of Advanced Air Mobility.
Disclaimer Statement
We encourage you to apply even if you may not have all the experience listed in the advert. We recognise that talent comes in
various forms and we are committed to providing opportunities that create an environment of growth, diversity, and inclusion for
everyone. As part of our desire to review and make our processes fair, we may ask you questions related to these aspects during
the application process. For more information on how we will use your data, see our Legal section.
Our Mission At Vertical Aerospace, we are pioneering the way for electric aviation. The Valo, our eVTOL (electric, vertical, take-off and landing), 'zero emissions' aircraft will set a new safety standard for how we will navigate the sky. We won't realise our mission following the same legacy processes and traditions our predecessors followed, instead, we want to 'redefine' aerospace best practices. We are growing quickly from a prototype business to a scaling SME, and the next few years will be critical to our success and delivering on our ambitious goals. Valo is targeting airliner-level safety certification in 2029 ahead of entering service with our airline and operator customers. What to Expect This is a rare opportunity to shape a critical system on a first-of-its-kind aircraft. As Principal Propellers Engineer, you will be the technical authority for all things propellers - directly influencing design decisions, certification activities, and system integration. You'll work in a small, highly capable team, collaborating across disciplines to deliver a safe, robust, and certifiable solution for Valo. You’ll be hands-on, accountable, and at the centre of one of our most important engineering challenges. What You’ll Do * Act as the company’s technical authority for propeller systems, setting the direction for design, development, and certification * Define, assess, and approve the propeller architecture - including blade design, hub, spinner, and related hardware - ensuring safety, performance, and regulatory compliance * Take direct ownership of complex engineering tasks, from analysis and design trade-offs to authoring and reviewing certification artefacts * Make and justify technically sound decisions where trade-offs exist, even when data is incomplete or emerging * Lead and support propeller certification activities to CS-P standards, and contribute to wider aircraft-level certification under SC-VTOL * Apply deep knowledge of materials, manufacturing methods, and in-service behaviour to ensure the propeller system is durable, maintainable, and certifiable * Drive integration of the propeller system with aerodynamics, structures, loads, rotordynamics, composites, and safety teams - ensuring consistency across performance, vibration, reliability, and system interactions * Provide technical leadership within the propellers team, mentoring engineers, setting engineering standards, and contributing hands-on to design and development * Support planning and execution of development, qualification, and certification testing - including on-site presence at Kemble and other test locations to ensure technical objectives are met and data supports certification What You’ll Bring * A degree or equivalent experience in aerospace, mechanical engineering, or a related field * Significant hands-on experience with propellers, rotorcraft rotors, or similar rotating machinery * Strong understanding of propeller design, construction, and in-service behaviour * Eligibility for, or a clear path toward, technical approver signatory status * Working knowledge of CS-P and familiarity with SC-VTOL certification * Experience making and justifying engineering decisions with incomplete information * Willingness to travel regularly to Kemble and other test locations * Desirable: experience with rotordynamics, composite structures, systems integration, or propeller aerodynamics * Desirable: prior engagement with certification authorities or potential to become a Compliance Verification Engineer (CVE) #LI-LD1 What can you expect from us? We're on a mission. Where others see limits, we see opportunity, and we work at pace. Working at Vertical isn't your average role but for those seeking a challenge, a flexible, supportive organisation and an incredible team; working here is an opportunity to do the best work of your career. Our approach promotes ingenuity and courage, while our environment builds success through diligence in safety and being open in the way we work. The only way we're going to assure the next chapter of aviation history is by working as a team, relentlessly, towards our goal. Our benefits Our people matter - we're not going anywhere without them. Which is why our company benefits go beyond the essentials. * 26 days holiday, plus bank holiday * 5 extra days per year to buy (or sell) * 5 extra days holiday when you get married or enter a civil partnership * Additional 4% of your salary to spend on extra benefits * Award-winning digital health and wellbeing service (Help@Hand) * Company performance based bonus - rewarding company and individual performance * Company Share Scheme - open to every Vertical employee * Company Pension Scheme - 5% and we match it * Breakfast on us, every day We may just be the hardest job you've ever had, but we're confident it will be the most rewarding. Join the team today and help us shape the future of Advanced Air Mobility. Disclaimer Statement We encourage you to apply even if you may not have all the experience listed in the advert. We recognise that talent comes in various forms and we are committed to providing opportunities that create an environment of growth, diversity, and inclusion for everyone. As part of our desire to review and make our processes fair, we may ask you questions related to these aspects during the application process. For more information on how we will use your data, see our Legal section.
About Graphcore At Graphcore, we’re building the future of AI compute.We’re a team of semiconductor, software and AI experts, with deep experience in creating the complete AI compute stack - from silicon and software to infrastructure at datacenter scale. As part of the SoftBank Group, backed by significant long-term investment, we are delivering key technology into the fast-growing SoftBank AI ecosystem.To meet the vast and exciting AI opportunity, Graphcore is expanding its teams around the world.We are bringing together the brightest minds to solve the toughest problems, in a place where everyone has the opportunity to make an impact on the company, our products and the future of artificial intelligence. Job Summary We are looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to join our Cloud Platform Team and help develop and deploy clouds and services. Working closely with our colleagues in Software Platform, Datacentre Operations and Product Development teams, you will deploy services on our fleet of cutting-edge AI systems. As part of our Software Platform organisation, you will be involved in the cloud integration, validation, performance benchmarking, optimisation, and development of our high-performance AI solutions. These include in-house AI systems alongside off-the-shelf high-performance servers, switches and storage solutions. This is a hand-on technical role requiring a solid background in the use of cloud infrastructure, deployment using Infrastructure-as-Code, observability, high-performance networking and storage systems. You may have been working in an IT organisation, a datacentre, a cloud provider or as a developer of orchestration or cloud services. The Software Platform team at Graphcore We build Graphcore products into large-scale AI solutions for our customers and the Cloud Platform Team is responsible for providing such systems to both internal users via private clouds and customers via our own public clouds. Often the internal systems will be using and developing pre-release hardware and software, so it’s vital you are comfortable with unproven components. Responsibilities and Duties * Operate and extend existing OpenStack-based cloud services and contribute to the deployment and development of new ones. * You will be responsible for significant technical initiatives and projects, mentoring a small team of more junior engineers in best engineering practices. * Develop and operate end-user services on our clouds and support internal users in their use. You will turn end-user and product requirements into deployed services. * Help to build automation to collect and analyse metrics and other observability data from the cloud services to support clear identification and reporting of any issues. Work with users to provide information of any product-related issues to Engineering and QA departments. * Work with our Datacentre Operations Engineers to maintain and operate the fleet of AI systems at peak performance in our private clouds. * Configure and test new Graphcore AI hardware and systems using Continuous Deployment and Infrastructure-as-code in internal and external datacentres. * Drive corrective actions for systems that are not operating correctly, working with DC operations and Graphcore Engineering as required. * Work with external vendors of off-the-shelf switches, servers and storage solutions to specify, benchmark and integrate 3rd party products into our Cloud Reference Design. Skills and Experience [ALL REQUIRED] * Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience in a relevant subject. * Solid infrastructure or IT experience with a proven track record of delivering technical output as an individual contributor. * Experience managing or operating on-premises or private-cloud environments. * Experience specifying, scoping, estimating and detailing work plans in an AGILE and SCRUM framework, including priorities, risks, issues, impacts and constraints. * Expert-level, proven Linux scripting ability (bash and python required). * Expert-level, proven Linux system administration (Ubuntu, RHEL and variants). * Experience with a version control system (preferably Git) and using it to manage system configuration or automation. * Experience with Continuous Integration or testing pipelines using GitLab, GitHub or similar. * Hands-on experience deploying services into public or private clouds using Infrastructure-as-Code (IAC). * A solid understanding of the technologies underpinning cloud services (APIs, virtualisation of CPUs, IO, systems), virtual networks, block storage, resource management and monitoring. * Expert with IAC automation tools (e.g. Terraform/OpenTofu, Ansible, Packer). * Experience with container deployment and management tools (e.g. docker, podman, apptainer). * Experience with solutions for monitoring and observability. e.g. Grafana, Prometheus, OpenSearch/ElasticSearch, Loki, Mimir, OpenTelemetry, Fluentd ,Kafka * Excellent communication and presentation skills, and experience dealing with end-users of IT or cloud services. * An ability to work independently and lead others on critical infrastructure without oversight, and with a focus on end-user availability. Desirable but not required: * Experience with OpenStack deployments or the technologies they rely on (e.g. Ceph, Open vSwitch, KVM, QEMU ). * Experience with High Performance Computing (HPC) environments using SLURM or similar batch workload solutions. * Strong skillset and experience in end-to-end deployment automation and CI of containerised services. Complete automation of pipelines for build, test, deploy, manage, alert, destroy, rebuild. * Experience with managing production Kubernetes clusters and workloads. * Experience with workload queue management systems (SLURM, LSF, Kueue). * Experience with managed switch configuration (e.g. EOS, SONiC, DNOS). * Programming experience with Python3 utilising classes and inheritance. * Programming experience with Go. Benefits In addition to a competitive salary, Graphcore offers flexible working, a generous annual leave policy, private medical insurance and health cash plan, a dental plan, pension (matched up to 5%), life assurance and income protection. We have a generous parental leave policy and an employee assistance programme (which includes health, mental wellbeing, and bereavement support). We offer a range of healthy food and snacks at our central Bristol office and have our own barista bar! We welcome people of different backgrounds and experiences; we’re committed to building an inclusive work environment that makes Graphcore a great home for everyone. We offer an equal opportunity process and understand that there are visible and invisible differences in all of us. We can provide a flexible approach to interview and encourage you to chat to us if you require any reasonable adjustments. Sponsorship Applicants for this position must hold the right to work in the UK. Unfortunately at this time, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship or support for visa applications.
ABOUT GRAPHCORE At Graphcore, we’re building the future of AI compute.We’re a team of semiconductor, software and AI experts, with deep experience in creating the complete AI compute stack - from silicon and software to infrastructure at datacenter scale.As part of the SoftBank Group, backed by significant long-term investment, we are delivering key technology into the fast-growing SoftBank AI ecosystem.To meet the vast and exciting AI opportunity, Graphcore is expanding its teams around the world.We are bringing together the brightest minds to solve the toughest problems, in a place where everyone has the opportunity to make an impact on the company, our products and the future of artificial intelligence. Job Summary As Principal Product Engineer, you will be responsible for ensuring that Graphcore products are manufactured with optimised yield, quality and cost, throughout the product lifecycle. You will work closely with OSATs, test engineering, manufacturing and quality teams to release new products and sustain high volume production. This is a highly technical role requiring deep expertise in semiconductor product engineering, manufacturing analytics, and system-level test and manufacturing processes. You will provide technical leadership across manufacturing operations, helping define best practices, solve complex yield and quality challenges, and improve manufacturing efficiency and product reliability. The Team The role will be as part of the Product Test and Diagnosis team, which is part of the Graphcore Manufacturing Operations department and has members in Bristol, Cambridge, India, US and Taiwan. The team is responsible for definition, development, and execution of an end-to-end test strategy spanning silicon, board-level assemblies, server blades, and rack-scale systems. Testing is performed across the full product lifecycle, including manufacturing, and deployed field environments. Responsibilities and Duties * Drive yield, quality and cost optimisation across the product lifecycle, including chip manufacturing, test, PCBA and system level manufacturing * Work closely with test engineering to define requirements for coverage, reporting and datalog formats from both ATE and system level electrical test * Own analytics for SMT manufacturing processes, including SPI/AOI/AXI/ICT etc * Own analytics for board and system level testing, including boundary scan and functional testing at board/blade/rack level * Work with technology and manufacturing specialists to manage low yield events in production and drive overall yield improvement * Support RMA analysis and reliability/qualification activities * Establish best practices for data collection, cleaning, correlation, and visualization * Collaborate with the Data Engineering and Analytics team to develop loading scripts for new data sources and optimise database schemas * Define and develop standard analyses such as dashboards and enable fast self-service access to data for end users * Regular travel to OSATs and manufacturing partners will be required Essential Skills and Experience * Solid experience (10+ years) in semiconductor product engineering, test engineering, or manufacturing engineering * Solid experience in high-volume semiconductor/electronics manufacturing, data visualization tools, and manufacturing systems/databases (MES) * Solid understanding of semiconductor, PCBA and system level manufacturing and testing * Solid expertise in statistical analysis (SPC, DOE, regression, hypothesis testing) and six sigma methodologies * Solid expertise in analysing and visualising large manufacturing datasets * Proficiency in data tools such as Python, SQL, JMP, or similar. * Demonstrated success driving yield and cost improvements in high-volume production * Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics or similar Desirable: * Extensive experience and expertise in JMP and in using the JMP scripting language to build standard analysis reports, dashboards and applications * Experience in using data visualisation tools such as Apache Superset BENEFITS In addition to a competitive salary, Graphcore offers flexible working, a generous annual leave policy, private medical insurance and health cash plan, a dental plan, pension (matched up to 5%), life assurance and income protection. We have a generous parental leave policy and an employee assistance programme (which includes health, mental wellbeing, and bereavement support). We offer a range of healthy food and snacks at our central Bristol office and have our own barista bar! We welcome people of different backgrounds and experiences; we’re committed to building an inclusive work environment that makes Graphcore a great home for everyone. We offer an equal opportunity process and understand that there are visible and invisible differences in all of us. We can provide a flexible approach to interview and encourage you to chat to us if you require any reasonable adjustments.