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Senior / Staff Mechanical Design Engineer (All Teams)

South San Francisco, California, USA

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. This posting represents a pipeline across several hardware teams (Avionics, Structures & Mechanisms, Powertrain & Battery, Ground Systems). 

Candidates will be matched to the best team and level during hiring. Senior and Staff levels differ by scope: Senior owns complex subsystems or end-to-end features within a single program; Staff owns cross-team platforms, defines technical direction, and leads multiple programs or supplier partnerships.

What You'll Do

  • Own end-to-end delivery of mechanical subsystems from requirements → design → build → test → release → production sustainment for assigned team(s). 
    • SMI: Deliver a mass-production ready servo mechanism with validated life-cycle test
    • Avionics: Own and design avionics enclosures considering thermal, EMI, cost, mass, and manufacturing constraints
    • Battery & Power Electronics: Design battery enclosures that meet MIL-like vibration, thermal/ overpressure criteria, and safety requirements
    • Propulsion and Propeller: Benchmark, size, and design a custom motor using system level inputs while incorporating industry leading technology. Guide design through characterization, validation, and to mass production 
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Mentor peers (Senior) or set cross-team standards and lead technical programs (Staff). Take technical authority in design reviews and postmortems; lead incident root-cause investigations when field events occur.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Mentor peers (Senior) or set cross-team standards and lead technical programs (Staff). Take technical authority in design reviews and postmortems; lead incident root-cause investigations when field events occur.

What You'll Bring

  • 5–15+ years of mechanical/electromechanical design engineering experience delivering complex subsystems or products through NPI into production 
  • Proven ownership on ≥2 completed product programs involving electro-mechanical assemblies and supplier transfers.
  • Proficient CAD and documentation skills: able to own 3D assemblies and 2D detail drawings for 20–100 part systems; experience with NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent.
  • Domain engineering fundamentals: GD&T, hand calcs (beam, buckling, bolted joints), multi-body FEA and thermal analysis experience, and design-for-assembly/field-service practices.
  • Test-first mindset: experience planning and executing environmental, vibration, fatigue, and thermal verification; ability to design test fixtures and interpret data.
  • 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.

Team- or role-specific Tasks

  • Avionics: Experience with PCBA enclosures, sensor mounts, first-principles thermal design for electronics.
  • Battery and Power Electronics: Experience with battery & PCBA enclosures, connectors, and vibration/thermal robustness testing
  • Propulsion and Propellers: Rotor dynamics, vibrational durability, propeller design,and familiarity with brushless motor systems.
  • Structures & Mechanisms: Composite and metallic structural design, servo and mechanism design, mass-efficient layouts and static/dynamic load validation.
  •  Ground Systems / Towers / Dock: Sheet metal and welded structures, harnessing, and integration for high-reliability field hardware.

What Else You Need To Know

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!

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