(All Levels) Mechanical Design Engineer, Structures & Mechanisms

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by 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. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

About the Role

Zipline designs, builds, tests, and operates autonomous delivery aircraft that need to operate at scale in a huge variety of environments. The aircraft design is fundamental to the success of Zipline. It balances high performance, low cost, and high reliability and cutting edge thinking/manufacturing processes to achieve those goals.

As a Mechanical Engineer on our Platform 2 Aircraft Structures & Mechanisms team, you will own flight hardware that directly affects flight safety, fleet reliability, manufacturability, and the speed at which we scale service to new regions. At Zipline, design engineers are the primary responsible owner for structural and mechanism components across the full life cycle of hardware from initial concept, design, analysis, test, build, scaling, and field/maintenance. This person ensures that their designs will be effective across all phases of its life. This is a hands-on individual-contributor role spanning the design and implementation of your specific components as well as how they fit within the greater system. Each engineer is encouraged to question requirements, push for the best overall design/implementation, and work closely with production, operations, and test.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery of structural or mechanical subsystems from requirements → design → build → test → release → production/operations sustainment
• Produce and defend system-level trade studies, tolerance stacks, load paths, failure modes, and hand-calcs/analysis that bound designs for safety-critical loads and manufacturability of high performance hardware
• Create CAD assemblies, detailed drawings, GD&T, and manufacturing documentation for complex assemblies; own design reviews, DFM and first-article criteria
• Lead supplier selection, qualification, and handoff: drive DFM feedback, define inspection criteria, and reduce supplier NPI cycle time and scrap rates. Own escalation and remediation when supplier output risks field operations
• Cross-functional interface: partner daily with Systems, Software, Production, Integration & Test, Reliability, and Field Ops to align requirements, manage trade-offs, and eliminate deployment blockers
• Ship for scale: translate prototypes into designs that meet target cost, cycle time, and inspection rates for medium-volume production; own metrics for manufacturability and in-field reliability and drive them to target

Requirements

• Proven ownership of high performance or low margin mechanical or electromechanical hardware validation through development, qualification, production ramp, and field deployment
• First principles approach to engineering and a Test-first mindset: experience planning and executing environmental, vibration, fatigue, and thermal verification; ability to design test fixtures and interpret data
• Deep hands-on experience designing carbon composite structures, injection moulded plastics, metallic structures, and/or servo-actuated mechanisms
• Strong mechanical fundamentals and experience working with suppliers when developing hardware and processes
• Demonstrated supplier/DFM experience and track record reducing NPI cycles, scrap, or supplier defects
• Clear written and verbal technical communication; ability to present tradeoffs and accept/reject risk decisions to stakeholders

Pay

The starting cash range for this role is $145,000 – $225,000. Please note that these are starting salary ranges that represent multiple internal levels. The final cash pay will depend on experience, qualifications, skills, location, and projected impact. Total compensation will also include equity, incentives, and benefits such as medical, dental, vision, and paid time off.