Mechanical Engineer, Ground Systems

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

40d•$135,000 - $225,000•Hybrid

About The Position

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. The Ground Systems team is responsible for all of the infrastructure that enables our Zips to take off, fly, land, charge and prepare for their next mission. Our goal is to develop elegant integration solutions that are modular, cost effective, and adaptable to both new and existing building structures and sites worldwide for a variety of customers making drone deliveries.

Requirements

5–10+ years of mechanical/electromechanical design engineering experience delivering complex subsystems or products through NPI into production
Proven track record owning complex subassemblies or full systems over at least 2 product programs (concept, prototype, validation, production)
Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals including load estimation, structural hand calcs, FEA, material selection, clean CAD designs and design-for-assembly/field-service practices
Demonstrated experience designing mechanisms and actuator systems, including selection and integration of motors, gearboxes, bearings, linear actuators, springs, linkages, sensors, and other motion-control components.
Experience evaluating mechanism kinematics, actuator loads, friction, efficiency, backlash, compliance, duty cycle, wear, fatigue, and life.
Practical knowledge of manufacturing methods such as welding, sheetmetal forming, extrusion, CNC machining, injection molding, etc
Experience partnering with contract manufacturers to ramp up production of high volume lines
Strong CAD and documentation skills: able to own 3D assemblies and 2D detail drawings for 20–100 part systems; experience with NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent
Disciplined processes: Your parts are released, BOMs are maintained, SOPs created for builds, and timelines are up-to-date
Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication. You know how to tailor to your audience with the right level of technical depth to be as effective as possible, including using basic tools in place of full CAD when it makes sense
Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline
Ability to periodically (<10%) travel to visit customers and suppliers

Nice To Haves

NX is your primary CAD tool
Experience designing autonomous machinery, robotics, industrial automation, aerospace ground equipment, material-handling systems, or other electromechanical products.
Experience developing custom actuators, drivetrains, latching systems, or compliant mechanisms

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end delivery of mechanical and electromechanical subsystems, from requirements definition through concept development, design, build, verification, release, production ramp, and sustaining engineering
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
Partner daily with Systems, Software, Production, Integration & Test, Reliability, and Field Ops to align requirements, manage trade-offs, and eliminate deployment blockers
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.
Serve as a technical authority in design reviews and postmortems; lead incident root-cause investigations when field events occur
Mentor peers and junior engineers, and raise the quality of mechanical design practices across the team.