Senior Electrical Engineer - Long Range

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’s long-range drone platform began operations in Rwanda in 2016. With a fixed-wing design capable of flying over 200 km on a single charge, our drones enable fast, reliable delivery of critical medical supplies to remote communities. From helping new mothers in Rwanda to saving snake bite victims in Ghana, Zipline’s technology has already served millions across the African continent—delivering thousands of life-saving products daily.

The long range platform engineering team is responsible for designing the aircraft and the ground systems to enable launch and recovery. We’re looking for an electrical engineer excited to design real hardware that flies, operates in demanding environments and scales globally. In this role, you’ll own electrical subsystems end-to-end: from architecture development and schematic design through bring-up, validation, production, and field support. You’ll work within an existing airborne architecture, owning meaningful subsystem improvements and enabling new capabilities while maintaining the stability of a live, production system.

In this role, you will develop hardware for our next generation platform architecture which involves designing electronics in at least one of the following fields: Microprocessors, high-speed communication, GNSS, brushless DC motor drives, power supply, battery, and more. You’ll collaborate closely with firmware, mechanical, systems, manufacturing, and operations teams to deliver hardware that balances practical constraints with elegant solutions.

Responsibilities

• Own the electrical design for volume production through a design cycle including requirements, prototype, schematic capture, layout, and validation.
• Make impactful design decisions daily, while working with a high level of independence.
• Lead trade studies, understand competing design priorities, and provide direction and clarity for burning down risk.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with reliability, mechanical, embedded, and systems engineers in all stages of development, including:
  • Concept: System requirement, specification
  • Design: Schematic capture, PCB layout, system integration
  • Validation: Function and reliability test
  • Production: DFM, design drawings, manufacturing, EOL test, certification
  • Deployment: Troubleshoot field issues, develop rapid mitigations, roll learnings into future design revision
• Travel occasionally to support supplier and manufacturer visit, product deployment, and field validation.

Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or related field with a strong foundation in first principles engineering.
• Minimum 4 years experience designing complex PCBAs, including: circuit analysis, schematic capture, PCB layout, packaging, integration, production, and board-level validation.
• Experience with at least some of the following areas:
  • Mixed signal design and high speed design
  • Lithium Ion battery pack design– BMS, safety, power distribution, etc.
  • BLDC motor drives
  • Basic embedded communications busses (e.g. SPI, I2C, UART, CAN)
  • Higher speed communications (e.g. Ethernet, LVDS)
• Enthusiasm for working in a fast-paced, hands on, collaborative, cross-functional environment.
• A desire to spend time in the engineering lab and experience with common lab equipment, such as an Oscilloscope, DMM, TDR, LCR, Network Analyzer, etc.
• Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical challenges to both fellow engineers and non-engineers alike.
• Must be eligible to work in the US.
• Must be able to work at Zipline’s South San Francisco office.

Pay

The starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - $235,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role 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.