Director of Flight Software & Algorithms

<div class="content-intro"><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Archer is an aerospace company based in San Jose, California building an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a mission to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. We are designing, manufacturing, and operating an all-electric aircraft that can carry four passengers while producing minimal noise.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members.</span></p></div><p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>About the Role</strong></span></p> <p>The Director of Flight Software & Algorithms leads the teams that own Archer's core flight software, guidance/navigation/control (GNC) algorithms, autonomy, powertrain software, and the safety-critical onboard systems that fly our aircraft. This is a product-centric, deep-domain leadership role with end-to-end ownership — from control law and estimation algorithm to certified, airworthy software running on the aircraft.</p> <p>We are building the most advanced <em>and</em> the most AI-native flight software organization in aerospace. This leader will not simply apply established DO-178C practice — they will help reinvent it, using AI, automation, and modern software methods to compress the path from algorithm to certified flight while raising the safety bar. The mandate is explicit: change how flight-critical software and GNC are built in this industry, and prove that velocity and airworthiness are not a tradeoff.</p> <p>"One foot in software, one foot in systems." You will drive technical strategy, execution, and cross-functional alignment across Software, Avionics, Flight Controls, and Flight Test.</p> <h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>What You’ll Do</strong></span></h2> <ul> <li>Lead and grow the Flight Software & Algorithms organization — embedded flight software, GNC, autonomy, powertrain software, and simulation — managing managers and senior technical leaders.</li> <li>Own the architecture, development, integration, and verification of all flight-critical and safety-critical software, from requirements to airworthiness.</li> <li>Drive the design of GNC algorithms, state estimation, fault detection and isolation, and flight-control logic for a novel eVTOL configuration across hover, transition, and forward flight.</li> <li>Oversee real-time embedded software for flight