Lead Mechanical Engineer, Production Equipment

Zipline • South San Francisco, CA

2h • $150,000 - $180,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Zipline is seeking a Lead Mechanical Engineer for its Manufacturing Engineering team, based at Coop, its South San Francisco manufacturing site. The role owns the mechanical production equipment that supports assembly of autonomous delivery aircraft, battery integration, dock components, and flight-critical subsystems. The work is approximately 75% hands-on equipment design, building, commissioning, and improvement on the factory floor, and 25% technical, people, and program leadership. The role’s impact includes production throughput, first-pass yield, cycle time, equipment uptime, fleet readiness, and safety-critical performance.

The engineer leads equipment projects from requirements through CAD design, drawings, vendor fabrication, build, commissioning, and production release. The position also establishes tooling and design standards, mentors tooling engineers and technicians, and works across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, testing, and field operations. The role is site-based, with regular on-site presence during standard manufacturing shifts, occasional off-hours commissioning, and up to 15% travel to vendor or field sites.

Requirements

• At least 2 years designing production equipment, fixtures, or custom automation in a high-volume or fast-ramping manufacturing environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated mastery of GD&T, tolerance analysis, mechanism design, material selection, and failure-mode thinking for assembly tooling.
• Proficiency in 3D CAD.
• Hands-on experience commissioning equipment on the factory floor, including fabrication support, building, debugging, testing, and operator training.
• Comfort spending most of the workweek on-site.
• Practical knowledge of pneumatics, actuators, sensors, linear motion, machine guarding, and industrial electrical interfaces used in tooling and small automation.
• Track record delivering quantitative outcomes in cycle time, uptime, first-pass yield, or cost per unit, and making tradeoffs between throughput, reliability, and maintainability.
• Ability to lead vendor builds and perform acceptance testing against technical drawings and quality-assurance criteria.
• High ownership of safety and reliability, decisive technical judgment under schedule pressure, comfort with ambiguity and rapid iteration, and willingness to escalate and resolve issues affecting fleet readiness.
• Availability for regular on-site work during standard manufacturing shifts, occasional off-hours commissioning, and up to 15% travel to vendor or field sites.

Nice To Haves

• 5–7 years of relevant experience.
• Experience with aerospace, drones, medical devices, or safety-critical electro-mechanical products.
• Siemens NX experience; SolidWorks or Creo experience is acceptable with strong intent to learn NX.

Responsibilities

• Lead mechanical equipment design reviews and technical tradeoffs, establish consistent tooling standards, and coordinate priorities and release readiness across equipment projects.
• Own end-to-end delivery of production equipment and tooling projects for aircraft and electro-mechanical subsystems, from requirements and CAD through drawings, vendor fabrication oversight, build, commissioning, and production release.
• Deliver measurable improvements, including tooling availability above 95%, 20–40% reductions in manual assembly cycle time per station, and at least 10% improvement in first-pass yield on targeted assemblies within 6–12 months of deployment.
• Design and install alignment fixtures, press and torque tooling, ergonomic operator stations, poka-yoke devices, handling and transport fixtures, and automated end-of-line test rigs.
• Lead on-line debugging and rapid root-cause analysis during launches and ramp phases, including weekend or evening commissioning efforts during critical releases.
• Create and enforce tooling design standards, GD&T practices, tolerance stacks, and material and process selections that meet safety and maintainability requirements.
• Mentor and review the work of 1–4 tooling engineers and technicians; set priorities, approve releases, run design reviews, and recruit or hire as needed.
• Coordinate with Design Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Test Engineering, and Field Operations to align tooling scope, test requirements, and production schedules.
• Manage fabricator and vendor relationships, write technical RFQs, evaluate proposals, verify vendor quality control, and perform acceptance testing during builds and after installation.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior