Test Engineering Manager, Dropbox

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Zipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. Dropbox is our customer-facing package-loading product that integrates mechatronics, sensors, electronics, access control, user interaction, and environmental protection to enable untrained users to hand off packages to our droids. The Test Engineering Manager for Dropbox will lead a team that proves Dropbox is safe, reliable, and production-ready across development, qualification, and fleet deployment. You will own the test strategy, infrastructure, automation, and system-level evidence that determine whether Dropbox can scale to hundreds or thousands of sites, and you will convert field learnings into design and process changes that reduce failures in the field.

Requirements

Proven experience managing a team of test/validation engineers for complex electromechanical or robotic products through development, qualification, production, and field deployment.
Hands-on expertise designing test rigs, fixtures, instrumentation, DAQ, and automated test equipment; comfortable operating and iterating lab hardware.
Strong systems judgment across mechanical hardware, sensors, electronics, embedded software, controls, and user interactions.
Demonstrated skill with experimental design and statistical analysis: defining sample sizes, confidence intervals, acceleration models, and correlating lab-to-field performance.
Track record driving failure investigations to a root cause and implementing design or process changes that measurably reduce field failures.
Experience building test automation and analysis tools (Python, SQL, or equivalent) and authoring reproducible test reports and dashboards.
Clear written and verbal communication; able to present tradeoffs and readiness recommendations to engineering and product leadership.
Operate at the intensity required by customer-facing, unattended field systems: prioritize rapid learning while enforcing safety and reliability gates.
Must-haves: proven ownership of system-level validation for hardware+software products and demonstrated ability to scale test capabilities to support production ramp and fleet expansion.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end test and validation for Dropbox: define measurable success criteria, test coverage, traceability, and exit gates from prototype through production and fleet rollout.
Lead and grow a team of test engineers: set technical standards, assign clear ownership, hire, and mentor engineers to deliver test scope on schedule.
Translate product requirements, hazards, customer workflows, and failure modes into quantifiable test requirements and pass/fail criteria.
Design and execute component, subsystem, and system-level tests that measure functionality, safety, reliability, lifetime, environmental exposure, misuse, packaging variation, and fault recovery.
Build and maintain automated test stands, fixtures, instrumented rigs, DAQ, and analysis tooling to increase test throughput and repeatability.
Define sample sizes, acceleration factors, confidence levels, and statistical acceptance criteria to produce defensible reliability evidence.
Correlate lab and accelerated tests with production and field telemetry to validate test fidelity and update test profiles based on operational data.
Establish regression and release-readiness testing that reliably catches hardware and software regressions before field deployment.
Lead structured failure investigations and root-cause analysis; own corrective actions that feed into design, manufacturing, and deployment changes.
Partner daily with Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded Software, Systems, Reliability, Manufacturing, and Operations to remove test-blockers and align release criteria.
Deliver dashboards and metrics (coverage, MTBF, P95 latency for critical operations, failure rate per 1,000 cycles, test throughput) that make readiness and risk visible to stakeholders.
Improve lab utilization, automation levels, and the speed at which the organization converts test evidence into product decisions.