Principal Stress Engineer

Greater Bristol Area, United Kingdom (Hybrid)

FLYTE has a long-standing partnership with one of the leaders in eVTOL aircraft development, based in Bristol, UK. This company is at the forefront of innovation in the aerospace industry and has made significant strides in advancing urban air mobility.

With a market-leading order book of 1,500 aircraft valued at over $6 billion, they have established an impressive ecosystem of partnerships with some of the world’s biggest aerospace and technology companies. They are also supported by strong backing from the UK government and global investors, solidifying their position for long-term success. Coupled with a focused business model, cutting-edge aircraft designs, and an outstanding team, the company is well-poised for the future.

They are now entering a critical phase in their development, testing, and certification journey, with plans to certify and begin operations by 2028. To help achieve these ambitious goals, we are looking for a high-profile Principal Stress Engineer to join the team.

As Principal Stress Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role in leading structural analysis across the full airframe—through prototype, certification, and into production. This is a rare opportunity to influence the entire product lifecycle of a novel eVTOL aircraft from the ground up.

What you'll do:

• Provide technical direction across the Airframe stress teams, ensuring robust, pragmatic and consistent structural analysis approaches.
• Lead and participate in design reviews, challenging assumptions to drive optimal and certifiable design solutions.
• Act as a key technical approver for stress analyses, reports and airframe drawings.
• Guide certification activities, advising on compliance strategies and suitable methods of substantiation.
• Mentor and develop engineers across the team, fostering a high-performance, collaborative culture.

What you'll bring:

• Broad experience across the full product lifecycle: from clean-sheet design and prototyping, through to certification and serial production of novel aircraft.
• Proven structural stress engineering experience, ideally on eVTOL, UAM, or similarly innovative aerospace programmes.
• Strong working knowledge of composite airframe structures, across the entire aircraft (not limited to a specific part or subsystem).
• Deep understanding of systems engineering principles and the V&V process.
• A pragmatic mindset—comfortable balancing analytical rigour with fast-paced development timelines, and knowing when to use hand calculations versus detailed FEA.
• Proficiency with Hyperworks, or strong transferable skills from other FEA tools (e.g., NASTRAN, Abaqus).
• Knowledge of fatigue & damage tolerance, crashworthiness, or impact methodologies is highly desirable.
• Clear communicator with excellent organisational skills, capable of engaging across multi-disciplinary engineering teams.

Ready to take FLYTE? This is a truly exceptional opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking aircraft business at the cutting edge of aviation technology and urban air mobility. As a key player in the team, you’ll have the chance to make a critical impact on the certification and launch of one of the first eVTOL aircraft, positioning yourself at the forefront of a transformative industry. Apply today, and our FLYTE® team will arrange a confidential discussion.