Lead, Avionics Technician

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 builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. The Avionics team develops and supports the electronics, sensors, communications hardware, wiring, and electromechanical assemblies used across our aircraft, droids, and ground systems.

As Lead of Avionics Technicians, you will build and lead the technician team responsible for prototype assembly, rework, integration, testing, and troubleshooting. You will hire and develop technicians, plan team capacity, establish technical standards, and ensure engineering programs receive high-quality hardware on schedule. This is a hands-on people-management role. You will be accountable for the team’s performance while remaining close enough to the work to resolve difficult technical problems, improve processes, and set the standard for disciplined execution.

Responsibilities

• Build, manage, and develop a high-performing team of avionics technicians.
• Hire technicians with the right mix of electronics assembly, rework, integration, test, and troubleshooting skills.
• Set clear responsibilities, priorities, performance expectations, and development plans for each team member.
• Plan technician staffing and capacity across prototype builds, engineering tests, qualification campaigns, failure investigations, and production support.
• Own daily execution and ensure work is completed safely, correctly, and on schedule.
• Establish standards for soldering, crimping, harness assembly, inspection, ESD controls, test execution, documentation, and configuration control.
• Develop training and certification programs that expand technician capability and create consistent workmanship across the team.
• Partner with Electrical, Mechanical, RF, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, and program leads to anticipate demand and resolve execution constraints.
• Ensure drawings, work instructions, test procedures, and material kits are ready before work begins; drive improvements when documentation is incomplete.
• Lead escalations involving difficult builds, intermittent failures, test-equipment problems, or recurring workmanship issues.
• Develop metrics for build quality, throughput, rework, schedule adherence, equipment utilization, and technician capacity.
• Own lab readiness, including tools, test equipment, calibration, consumables, material flow, safety, and workspace organization.
• Support work at suppliers, manufacturing facilities, test sites, and deployment locations when needed.

Requirements

• Proven success managing and developing technicians who build and test complex electronics, avionics, robotics, or other high-reliability hardware.
• Experience hiring, onboarding, setting performance expectations, providing feedback, and developing technical career paths.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of electronics assembly, soldering, crimping, harnessing, rework, inspection, integration, and test.
• Ability to read electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, mechanical drawings, BOMs, and work instructions.
• Experience troubleshooting hardware using oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, power supplies, electronic loads, logic analyzers, and related equipment.
• Demonstrated ability to plan team capacity, manage competing priorities, and deliver reliable execution across multiple programs.
• Experience establishing workmanship, safety, ESD, documentation, and configuration-control standards.
• Strong cross-functional communication and the judgment to balance schedule urgency with hardware quality and safety.
• Willingness to remain technically engaged and work alongside the team when complex or urgent problems arise.
• Ability to work in person in South San Francisco and travel occasionally to suppliers, manufacturing facilities, and test or deployment sites.

Nice to Have

• IPC J-STD-001, IPC-A-610, IPC/WHMA-A-620, or equivalent certification or training experience.
• Experience supporting aerospace, robotics, automotive, medical-device, or other safety-critical products.
• Experience with RF hardware, antennas, flex circuits, environmental testing, or electronics failure analysis.
• Familiarity with PLM, MES, inventory, issue-tracking, and test-data systems.

What Success Looks Like

• A capable technician team is hired, trained, retained, and able to support growing avionics demand.
• Engineering programs receive consistently high-quality builds and test support on schedule.
• Technician capacity and priorities are visible, enabling resources to be assigned before they become program constraints.
• Build defects, rework, documentation gaps, and repeated workmanship issues decline over time.
• Technicians receive effective coaching, clear career development, and increasing technical responsibility.
• The avionics lab operates safely and predictably with appropriate tools, materials, processes, and controls.

Pay

The starting salary for this role is $117,000 - $175,000.