Mechanical Engineer, Ground Systems
Zipline · San Francisco, United States · 1mo ago
About Zipline
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.
Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.
Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.
We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.
About You and The Role
Zipline builds autonomous delivery aircraft and ground systems that operate daily in various field conditions. You will own hardware that directly affects flight safety, fleet reliability, manufacturability, and the speed at which we scale service to new regions. The Ground Systems team is responsible for all of the infrastructure that enables our Zips to take off, fly, land, charge and prepare for their next mission. Our goal is to develop elegant integration solutions that are modular, cost effective, and adaptable to both new and existing building structures and sites worldwide for a variety of customers making drone deliveries.
What You'll Do
- Own the end-to-end delivery of mechanical and electromechanical subsystems, from requirements definition through concept development, design, build, verification, release, production ramp, and sustaining engineering
- Produce and defend system-level trade studies, tolerance stacks, load paths, failure modes, and hand-calcs that bound designs for safety-critical loads and manufacturability.
- Create CAD assemblies, detailed drawings, GD&T, and manufacturing documentation for 20–100 part assemblies; own design reviews, DFM, and first-article criteria.
- Develop and execute verification plans (environmental, fatigue, vibration, thermal, EMI/EMC where applicable), build test rigs/fixtures, run test campaigns, analyze results, and close findings with corrective actions and measurable reliability improvements
- 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
- Partner daily with Systems, Software, Production, Integration & Test, Reliability, and Field Ops to align requirements, manage trade-offs, and eliminate deployment blockers
- 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.
- Serve as a technical authority in design reviews and postmortems; lead incident root-cause investigations when field events occur
- Mentor peers and junior engineers, and raise the quality of mechanical design practices across the team.
What You'll Bring
- 5–10+ years of mechanical/electromechanical design engineering experience delivering complex subsystems or products through NPI into production
- Proven track record owning complex subassemblies or full systems over at least 2 product programs (concept, prototype, validation, production)
- Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals including load estimation, structural hand calcs, FEA, material selection, clean CAD designs and design-for-assembly/field-service practices
- Demonstrated experience designing mechanisms and actuator systems, including selection and integration of motors, gearboxes, bearings, linear actuators, springs, linkages, sensors, and other motion-control components.
- Experience evaluating mechanism kinematics, actuator loads, friction, efficiency, backlash, compliance, duty cycle, wear, fatigue, and life.
- Practical knowledge of manufacturing methods such as welding, sheetmetal forming, extrusion, CNC machining, injection molding, etc
- Experience partnering with contract manufacturers to ramp up production of high volume lines ● Strong CAD and documentation skills: able to own 3D assemblies and 2D detail drawings for 20–100 part systems; experience with NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent
- Disciplined processes: Your parts are released, BOMs are maintained, SOPs created for builds, and timelines are up-to-date
- Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication. You know how to tailor to your audience with the right level of technical depth to be as effective as possible, including using basic tools in place of full CAD when it makes sense
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline
- Ability to periodically (<10%) travel to visit customers and suppliers
Nice to Have
- NX is your primary CAD tool
- Experience designing autonomous machinery, robotics, industrial automation, aerospace ground equipment, material-handling systems, or other electromechanical products.
- Experience developing custom actuators, drivetrains, latching systems, or compliant mechanisms
What Else You Need To Know
The starting cash range for this role is $135,000 - $225,000. 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.
Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.
We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!
Voluntary Self-Identification
For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.