Aerodynamics Manager

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, ensuring access to food, medicine, and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably across four continents. Our customers include prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, and global businesses.

About You And The Role

You’ll be a senior engineering leader responsible for delivering the aerodynamic and acoustic performance that make Zipline’s autonomous delivery aircraft fleet a magical customer experience. You will lead the aerodynamics discipline across clean-sheet vehicles and major hardware revisions, owning aerodynamic tradeoffs that affect range, payload, noise compliance, manufacturability, and fleet uptime. This role is based in South San Francisco with an expected on-site cadence of 5 days/week and requires regular domestic travel to flight-test facilities and operational sites.

Responsibilities

• Own aerodynamic performance and aeroacoustic targets for all active vehicle programs and fleet upgrades; set measurable targets that contribute to broad operational and business goals, and be accountable for meeting them.
• Lead and grow a 5–9 person aerodynamics team, set roadmaps, hire, and run weekly design reviews and sprint milestones tied to flight-test campaigns and program release gates.
• Build, validate, and maintain the aerodynamic plant models used by flight controls, performance, and systems teams; own model versioning and error budgets tied to fleet performance metrics (range, climb rate, cruise efficiency, acoustic footprint, and margin to safety limits).
• Design, specify, and oversee execution of aero test assets: wind tunnel models, instrumented flight-test vehicles, bench rigs, and propeller test stands; translate test results into model updates and design fixes within program schedules.
• Deliver advanced surfacing (external and internal wetted geometry) as release-quality inputs to mechanical design and manufacturing; respecting manufacturability, assembly interfaces, and maintenance access in designs.
• Lead propeller aerodynamic and acoustic trade studies to minimize noise while meeting thrust and efficiency targets; own trade decisions, documentation, and risk mitigations.
• Establish and track measurable metrics for aerodynamic health of the fleet (model fidelity, production deviation rates, flight-test pass rates, acoustic exceedances, and field-maintenance root causes) and report progress to vehicle program leadership.
• Interface daily with propulsion, structures, flight software, certification/safety, manufacturing, and field operations teams; resolving cross-functional aero/system tradeoffs and owning aero-related requirements in system-level reviews.

Requirements

• Minimum 6+ years industry experience in applied aerodynamics/aircraft design with at least 3 years in a leadership role or clear readiness to lead a 5–9 person team; hands-on contributor background required.
• Deep expertise in CFD (experience with Fluent, Star-CCM+, OpenFOAM, powerFLOW, or equivalent); translating CFD data into validated plant models for controls and performance, and interpreting three-dimensional flow behaviors to drive design forward.
• Proven experimental aerodynamics skills: wind tunnel program design, pressure scanning, PIV/LDV, tufting/surface oil flow visualization, load measurement, flight-test instrumentation, and data reduction.
• Advanced surfacing and geometry skills with tools such as CATIA or NX and experience producing release-quality geometry for mass-produced products.
• Strong understanding of propeller/rotor aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, including noise-reduction design techniques and trade studies between efficiency and acoustic footprint.
• Comfortable operating at high intensity: making fast, defensible tradeoffs under schedule pressure and ambiguity; hands-on through design, flight test, and manufacturing handoff.
• Based in South San Francisco (required); ability to be on-site 5 days/week and travel domestically 10–20% for flight tests. Must be eligible to work in the US.

Pay

The starting cash range for this role is $200,000 to $265,000.