- Location
- South San Francisco, California, USA · Aviary - SSF
- Department
- Engineering
- Seniority
- Senior
Description
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
As a Senior Manufacturing Engineer, you will turn complex electro-mechanical products into safe, reliable, repeatable production lines for Zipline’s aircraft, docks, and logistics hardware. You will own assigned final assembly and feeder sub-assembly lines from process definition and tooling through validation, production release, and sustainment.
This work connects aerospace-quality manufacturing with reliable field operations and rapid production growth. You will help scale output from tens to thousands of units per week over the next 1–3 years while meeting safety and reliability expectations. Your initial priority is to bring a complex electro-mechanical sub-assembly in-house and validate its production line within months.
What You'll Do
- Own end-to-end industrialization of assigned assembly lines and feeder sub-assemblies, from concept, tooling, and pilot builds through production release and sustainment.
- Design, procure, fabricate, install, and commission fixtures, gauges, tooling, workstations, and ergonomic operator flows at Zipline manufacturing sites.
- Define, execute, and sign off on process validation, including PFMEAs, control plans, capability studies (Cp/Cpk), first-article inspections, pilot builds, and production-release criteria.
- Own first-pass yield, throughput, takt, mean time between failures, downtime, and cost-of-poor-quality metrics; drive improvements against quarterly targets.
- Lead DFM reviews and tradeoffs with product design to reduce assembly time, simplify inspection, and lower cost per unit while meeting aerospace safety and field-reliability requirements.
- Investigate escalated production issues and escapes, validate root causes, implement corrective and preventive actions, and update control plans to prevent recurrence.
- Create, validate, and maintain SOPs, work instructions, control plans, and training materials; train and qualify technicians and line leads.
- Coordinate execution with Design Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Maintenance, and Ops Program Management as the primary manufacturing owner for assigned product lines.
- Plan capacity and production scaling against demand milestones, including layout, utilities, equipment, and staffing tradeoffs.
- Support on-site production escalations, including occasional off-shift or weekend interventions during critical ramps or outages, and travel to manufacturing sites as required.
What You'll Bring
- 7+ years of hands-on manufacturing engineering experience designing, building, and sustaining assembly lines for complex electro-mechanical products, with a track record of scaling volume by an order of magnitude.
- A BS in Mechanical Engineering or a related field is required; an advanced degree is a plus.
- Practical mastery of PFMEA, control plans, SPC, capability analysis (Cp/Cpk), first-article processes, and production validation.
- Experience designing and validating custom fixtures, jigs, and tooling, with proficiency in 3D CAD; Siemens NX is preferred.
- Experience with MES/ERP and statistical tools such as Minitab, JMP, or Excel to measure and improve yield and process capability.
- Demonstrated cross-functional DFM decisions that balance cost, manufacturability, safety, and field reliability.
- End-to-end project ownership with minimal oversight, including planning, budgeting, procurement, commissioning, and sustaining production lines.
- A hands-on approach to manufacturing, careful attention to process details, clear communication of tradeoffs under schedule pressure, and a commitment to safety and quality.
- Accountability for ramp milestones and agreed yield, throughput, and cost targets, with a structured approach to preventing production escapes and meeting release criteria.
Location & Logistics
This role requires regular on-site presence at Zipline manufacturing facilities. Occasional rare travel between sites may be required during ramp and sustainment. Nights or weekends may be needed to support critical production ramps or outages.
Success in 6–12 Months
- Deliver a validated pilot line for the assigned electro-mechanical assembly, with documented process controls and demonstrated Cp/Cpk targets.
- Achieve first-pass yield and throughput targets established at project start and reduce key PFMEA failure modes by agreed percentages.
- Meet the established production-release window and stabilize yield and throughput through cross-functional execution and sustained corrective actions.
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!
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.