Interconnect Integration Test Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

13h•Onsite

About The Position

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. They design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. Their system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back, with over 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown. Zipline seeks practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth, motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and scaling the future of logistics. The company is looking for individuals who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can achieve the impossible at record-breaking speeds. This role involves quickly developing multiple iterations of systems to test novel components through extreme aerospace environments and designing tests for cross-functional interfaces with full ownership. The work is field-intended, with patients relying on timely delivery. The position focuses on driving manufacturing test, design validation, and managing technical risk within a dedicated team. Zipline is at the forefront of a logistics revolution, designing, manufacturing, and operating its own fleet of autonomous drones for deliveries 7 days a week. They are hiring Harnessing and Interconnect Integration Test Engineers within the Avionics Department, a hardware engineering organization responsible for the design and validation of flight hardware and operations equipment. This role is critical for the integration, reliability, and success of the overall vehicle, involving cross-functional stakeholders and design validation to ensure vehicles are ready for commercial operations. The product aims to be deployed in hours, integrate seamlessly with customers, and operate without human intervention globally at scale.

Requirements

Strong mechanical and test engineer fundamentals. You understand the theory behind good design decisions and have a proven track record of executing complex design validation test campaigns for requirement verification.
Design for user experience of harnessing and interconnect test systems. You can develop a machine that accomplishes complex interactions reliably and can be used by anyone with minimal training.
Cross functional integration and design definition of key vehicle interfaces and clear communication to multiple stakeholders.
Cross functional team management experience such that you can balance the needs of structures, aero, embedded, and software engineering teams to create one product that works for all.
Understand when we can get away with a quick and dirty or scrappy solution and when it is worth our time and money to make investments in the future.
Must be eligible to work in the US
Must be able to work in person at Zipline’s South San Francisco headquarters (onsite role)

Responsibilities

Work closely with the design and reliability teams to generate requirements for product design validation and test assets that accurately capture the intended function of the vehicle while leaving the door open for automation and high volume capacity.
Work closely with integration and production on handling best practices and vehicle-integration.
Explore and define product edge cases based on data you collect from the field, existing logs, component and system test, and in anticipation of future use cases and environments.
Design, build, and maintain critical test assets and equipment for production and design validation.
Manage test development and design derisk for early stage designs. This will include ruthlessly prioritizing where our efforts must be spent to get the most out of every precious day.
Pivot often as we navigate uncertain regulatory space and learn more about what it will take to really wow our customers in real-world environments.