Operations Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

9d•$104,000 - $170,000

About The Position

As an Operations Engineer on Manufacturing Engineering, you will connect demand, output, staffing, shifts, equipment, space, material flow, process capability, and capital investment. Working with production teams on the factory floor, you will make constraints visible, improve flow, and help leaders scale capacity deliberately. You will turn production goals into practical factory plans, remove bottlenecks, implement improvements, and establish operating routines that support timely corrective action. Your work will help manufacturing leaders match capacity to demand and sustain improvements in throughput, utilization, lead time, and cost.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
3+ years in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
Experience with time studies, labor and capacity models, line balancing, takt time, standard work, factory layouts, and material flow.
A record of identifying manufacturing constraints and improving throughput, productivity, utilization, lead time, or cost.
Strong spreadsheet and analytical skills, including work with ERP, MES, labor-tracking, and production data.
Ability to build operational and financial models for capital investment, automation, make-versus-buy, and factory scaling.
A hands-on approach, clear communication, and ownership of improvements from ambiguous problem through implementation.

Nice To Haves

5–7 years of relevant experience.
Experience scaling complex electromechanical products, expanding factories, or launching new production lines.
Familiarity with simulation, optimization, SQL, Python, BI tools, manufacturing dashboards, or ERP/MES platforms.
Experience with Lean manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, value-stream mapping, or automation business cases.

Responsibilities

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.
Lead time studies, define standard work and labor models, and balance station loading against takt time.
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.
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.