Full-Time
Senior Validation Engineer
Posted on 7/21/2025
Whisper Aero
11-50 employees
Designs electric propulsion systems for aircraft
No salary listed
No H1B Sponsorship
Nashville, TN, USA
In Person
Relocation Assistance is provided.
 QA & Testing (3) |
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- U.S. Person status is required, as this position may access export-controlled data.
- Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, electrical, aerospace engineering or related field (or equivalent experience).
- Typically requires 5 or more years in consumer product testing (validation, performance, reliability, safety), ideally with mass production or high-volume hardware
- Experience utilizing 3D CAD Software (Solidworks) to design test fixtures and components is required.
- Proven experience with vendor management, collaborating with and overseeing external test labs is required.
- Proven experience designing, building and programming automated test fixtures is required.
- Familiarity with test protocol development, sensor selection, and data acquisition software (e.g., LabVIEW) is required.
- Define test objectives, design verification plans, and develop test protocols to verify product and system level requirements, detailing pass/fail criteria, sampling strategies, and data collection requirements.
- Coordinate allocation of prototypes and production samples across multiple tests to keep hardware development and release schedules on track, maintaining a clear test‑timeline that integrates with program milestones.
- Select, coordinate and oversee third‑party test labs for reliability, safety and compliance testing on prototype units.
- Lead UL (and, where relevant, CE/RoHS) certification efforts by ensuring all safety and performance standards are met and rapidly escalating any failures to the team.
- Mentor and task our incoming test technician, ensuring they carry out protocols correctly, maintain equipment, and capture high‑quality data.
- Analyze test outputs, generate actionable reports, and present findings & recommendations to product and engineering teams.
- Drive test‑process efficiencies, recommend automation or tooling upgrades, and feed insights back into future designs.
- Design and build test rigs to improve repeatability and streamline test processes.
- Implement design modifications, propose assembly process improvements, and design fixtures and jigs to address test failures.
- Experience testing power tools, lawn‑care equipment or other light industrial/consumer hardware.
- Familiarity with statistical methods for design of experiments (DOE), sample size determination, and basic statistical analysis for test planning.
- Knowledge of manufacturing processes in contract‑manufacturing environments.
- Prior involvement with UL, CE, RoHS or similar safety standard certifications.
- Exposure to automated data‑acquisition systems or custom test‑software development.
Whisper Aero designs and manufactures electric propulsors, focusing on electric ducted fans to power quieter, more efficient propulsion for aircraft, drones, and other devices. Its tech reworks how electricity becomes thrust so noise shifts to ultrasonic frequencies, claiming up to 100x quieter performance. The company acts as a propulsion-system supplier across defense, commercial, and civil aviation markets, with customers such as the U.S. Air Force and NASA and concepts like the Whisper Jet. Its goal is to scale production and broaden adoption of ultra-quiet propulsion across multiple industries, including consumer tools and HVAC, through diverse revenue streams and partnerships.
Company Size
11-50
Company Stage
Series A
Total Funding
$48.9M
Headquarters
Crossville, Tennessee
Founded
N/A
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Air Force autonomous logistics contracts with 2027 flight testing validate defense sector demand.
- Tone T1 leaf blower at CES 2026 demonstrates consumer market traction and manufacturing capability.
- Stanley Black & Decker partnership extends addressable market into HVAC, ventilation, and industrial applications.
What critics are saying
- Stanley partnership dependency threatens primary non-defense revenue if deprioritized or terminated.
- Air Force program delays or cancellation eliminates largest contracted revenue source before profitability.
- Established aerospace suppliers rapidly advancing competing electric propulsion erodes Whisper's technology advantage.
What makes Whisper Aero unique
- Ultrasonic propulsion shifts noise beyond human hearing range, enabling 20x closer ground operations.
- Mark Moore's NASA DEP expertise and Air Force validation differentiate from traditional aerospace suppliers.
- Pressure injection molding manufacturing reduces costs while maintaining aerospace-grade performance across scales.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
401(k) Retirement Plan
Relocation Assistance
Professional Development Stipend
Company News
Whisper Aero unveils a leaf blower at CES. Whisper Aero has a unique way of showing its cards at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Crossville, Tennessee-based company has developed an ultra-quiet electric propulsor that could power aircraft of varying sizes. While nine Red Bull cyclists recently towed an ultralight sailplane skyward, two Whisper units could launch an ultralight flying wing hang glider. Beta testing in the hood. In what seems to be a clever and cagy move, Mark Moore and Ian Villa have created an electric leaf blower using their quiet technology. Putting their demonstrably quieter Whiasper Tone T1 in customer's hands will unleash thousands of beta testers for the device and the technology. Your editor was a bit taken aback by the blower's $599 price, but after comparing the T1 to units with which it is competitve, realized the addage about getting what you pay for is true in this instance. The video below is a good comparison with other similar products. Whisper is clever in its marketing approach, noting the good neighbor benefits of using their product. Interesting Engineering reports on the device. "The Tone T1 uses proprietary aerospace propulsion technology to deliver more power than top gas-powered blowers. "It operates 70% quieter, meeting the growing national demand for silent lawn care. "Tone T1 is born from the same propulsion technology Moore developed for electric aircraft. "'Whisper Aero was founded on a passion to achieve a quieter world, in the air and on the ground. The Tone T1 Leaf blower is the first product to use aerospace-grade technology derived from my years at NASA, where I pioneered electric aircraft,' said Moore." Similar neighborly efforts will be necessary to make drone deliveries and urban commuter flights reasonable. Whisper's Tone T1 can deliver low noise, and the same technology seems ready to deliver quietude while flying overhead. Whisper's management of acoustic perceptions fits neatly between normal adult loss in the upper frequency ranges and just below the enhanced ability of dogs to hear, well, dog whistles. The noise is there, but Sustainable Aviation Foundation and its pets can't hear it. Future plans. While the leaf blower will prove the efficiency of the thrust provided on owner's lawns, Moore and Villa have airborne ambitions to explore. The earliest aerial vehicle to employ the near-silent thrusters is a regional, autonomous people carrier very much in tune with Mark Moore's earlier leadership of the Uber Lift program, meant to provide urbanites with convenient air taxi service. The folks at Whisper Aero see a more suburban, rural kind of potential group of passengers. "Considerate and compelling" are words the team uses to describe their creations. Probably not autonomous. Even grander, Whisper visualizes a 100-passenger machine that would compete with more traditional craft like Embraers and Dash 8s. Whisper machines would be far quieter, though, allowing airports to built closer to population centers while being far less annoying. Designed to operate from 3,000-foot runways, the machine not only reduces noise, but increases performance through its distributed thrusters along the wing. As Whisper explains, " Integration of Whisper's electric ducted fans along the leading edge of a wing increases the aircraft's wing loading by >20% to increase the cruise high speed lift-to-drag ratio from 17.5 to 22." Operating economy should make the airliner a favorite with operators, if Whisper's analysis is correct. Whisper's designs are as unique as its thrusters, and might take a soothing sales pitch to fill seats, but Mark and Ian seem to have a way to sell their product, even in the hinterlands.
Whisper Aero unveils T1 leaf blower at CES 2026. Whisper Aero unveiled the T1 leaf blower under its Tone Outdoors sub-brand at CES 2026, targeting the persistent noise from gas-powered leaf blowers used for fall cleanup. The device addresses complaints about the constant drone from neighborhood leaf blowers, which operate daily through early December in areas with maple and oak trees. The T1 delivers 880 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of airflow, exceeding the performance of common battery-powered models like the EGO. It operates at an average of 52 decibels at peak volume, a significant reduction compared to typical leaf blowers.
Aviation International News reports that Crossville-based Whisper Aero Inc., the U.S. start-up developing quiet electric propulsion systems, revealed a family of autonomous aircraft concepts for contested logistics missions earlier this month during... The post Whisper Aero reveals a family of autonomous aircraft concepts appeared first on Teknovation.biz.
Electric propulsion developer Whisper Aero is working with the U.S. Air Force to develop a new family of quiet, efficient, autonomous aircraft for contested logistics, with initial flight testing scheduled for 2027.
Along with Tennessee Tech, Tennessee-based ultralight aircraft company Whisper Aero has secured a $500,000 grant to help advance the company's innovative electric jet motor concept off the drawing board and onto the testing phase.