Industrial Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

10d•$104,000 - $170,000

About The Position

Zipline is seeking an Industrial Engineer to join its Manufacturing Engineering team. The role designs factory layouts, work methods, and capacity models to help scale production reliably. The engineer connects demand, labor, equipment, space, and capital investment through time studies, standard work, line balancing, and production-system design. Working directly on the factory floor, the role uses observations and production data to improve station loading, operator movement, layouts, and manufacturing capacity. The work helps determine production capability, identify constraints, and evaluate investments in people, equipment, automation, and space. The position partners with Manufacturing, Production, Supply Chain, and Material Planning to improve factory performance, production flow, and scaling decisions. It develops operational and financial models, KPIs, and decision tools, and carries proposed improvements through implementation.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
At least 2 years of experience in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
Strong understanding of production-system design, capacity planning, line balancing, takt time, cycle-time analysis, standard work, and manufacturing flow.
Demonstrated experience performing time studies and translating observations into labor and capacity models.
Experience designing or improving manufacturing layouts and material-flow systems.
Strong analytical skills and ability to turn imperfect production data into clear engineering and business decisions.
Experience identifying manufacturing constraints and driving improvements in throughput, productivity, utilization, lead time, or cost.
Ability to build financial and operational models supporting CapEx, automation, make/buy, and factory-scaling decisions.
Strong spreadsheet and data-analysis skills; comfort working with manufacturing data from ERP, MES, labor-tracking, and production systems.
Ability to work directly on the factory floor and collaborate with technicians, manufacturing engineers, production leaders, quality engineers, supply chain, and design engineering.
Strong communication skills and ability to convert complex analysis into simple recommendations and executable plans.
High degree of ownership; able to identify ambiguous factory-level problems, define what needs to be measured, develop solutions, and drive them through implementation.

Nice To Haves

5–7 years of relevant experience preferred.
Experience scaling a complex electromechanical product from NPI or low-rate production into higher-volume manufacturing.
Experience with discrete-event simulation, optimization, operations research, or other production-system modeling techniques.
Experience with SQL, Python, BI tools, or other methods for analyzing large manufacturing datasets.
Experience with ERP and MES platforms and developing manufacturing dashboards or operational reporting systems.
Experience developing business cases for automation or major manufacturing equipment.
Experience with Lean manufacturing concepts, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, value-stream mapping, or structured continuous-improvement methodologies.
Experience supporting factory expansions, new production lines, or greenfield manufacturing operations.

Responsibilities

Own factory performance and production-system design, connecting individual processes into an efficient end-to-end system.
Improve factory layouts, workstations, operator movement, and material presentation.
Lead time studies, define standard work and labor models, and balance station loading against takt time.
Build capacity and capital-investment scenarios for labor, equipment, tooling, shifts, floor space, and future demand.
Identify current and future bottlenecks and implement improvements in throughput, utilization, cycle time, labor efficiency, and cost.
Define WIP, buffer, queue, and rework strategies that protect output while reducing inventory and lead time.
Partner with Manufacturing, Production, Supply Chain, and Material Planning on line architecture, lineside availability, and replenishment.
Develop factory KPIs, decision tools, make-versus-buy analyses, and investment cases; carry improvements through implementation.