Mechanical Test Engineer, Avionics

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

Does quickly developing multiple iterations of systems to test novel components through the extreme environments demanded of aerospace applications sound like the way you want to spend your time? Do you love designing tests for cross-functional interfaces with little information, full ownership, and the responsibility to make it happen? At Zipline our work is intended for the field. Patients are counting on it today—there is no time for aiming low or coming up short.

Zipline is hiring Mechanical Test Engineers across three different teams: Ground Systems, Structures & Mechanisms, and Powertrain & Battery. We are a hardware engineering organization with Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded Systems, and Test Engineering and are responsible for the design of all flight hardware and operations equipment; this includes Safety Systems, Primary Structure, Launcher, Recovery System, Battery Chargers, Power System, Network System, and countless other mechanisms critical to the function of the vehicle and ground systems.

Responsibilities

• Work with the product design and reliability teams to generate requirements for test systems that accurately capture the intended function of the vehicle while leaving the door open for future automation and high-volume capacity.
• Explore and define product edge cases based on data you collect from the field, existing logs, and in anticipation of future use cases and environments.
• Design, build, and maintain critical test systems.
• Manage test systems for early-stage designs, including ruthlessly prioritizing where efforts must be spent to get the most out of every precious day.
• Provide technical guidance to junior engineers and technicians.
• Pivot often as we navigate uncertain regulatory space and learn more about what it will take to wow our customers.

Requirements

• Design for user experience of mechanical test systems. You can develop a machine that accomplishes complex interactions reliably and can be used by anyone with minimal training.
• Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals. You understand the theory behind good design decisions and have a proven track record of executing these designs to make a test system that is more reliable than the product it is testing.
• Cross-functional team management experience such that you can balance the needs of structures, aero, embedded, and software engineering teams to create one product that works for all.
• Understand when we can get away with a quick and dirty or scrappy solution and when it is worth our time and money to make investments in the future.
• Must be eligible to work in the US.
• Must be able to work in person at Zipline’s South San Francisco headquarters.

Pay

The starting cash range for this role is $130,000 - $180,000. The final cash pay will depend on a candidate’s experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package may also include equity compensation, discretionary annual or performance bonuses, sales incentives, benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance, paid time off, and more.