Mechanical Engineer, Production Test

Skills this role screens for

About the role

About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.

Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.

We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.

About You & the Role

We are hiring a Mechanical Engineer, Production Test to own the mechanical fixtures and test interfaces that enable repeatable production testing of Zipline aircraft, docks, delivery pods, and subassembly hardware. You will design how products are located, loaded, supported, and connected to production testers and calibration stations, integrating sensors, actuators, instrumentation, and safety interfaces with electrical and software partners. Your work will make fixtures repeatable, maintainable, and practical to operate at production rates.

Zipline operates safety-critical autonomous aircraft and logistics systems that deliver medicine and essentials across varied field conditions; production test directly affects fleet uptime, field reliability, and customer deliveries. In this hands-on individual-contributor role you will own your discipline’s contribution to end-to-end test system delivery for factory floors that support high-throughput manufacturing and rapid product iterations. You will be expected to prioritize safety, traceability, and measurable improvements in yield and time-to-deploy while working in a fast-scaling production environment with direct consequences for aircraft reliability and delivery network performance.

The work

What You’ll Do

• Design production test fixture mechanics for repeatable product locating, loading, handling, and connection, with attention to safe operation and maintainability.
• Integrate instrumentation, sensors, actuators, harnessing, and safety interlocks into mechanical fixtures with electrical and software partners; validate fixture correlation and repeatability.
• Own mechanical design, delivery, and sustainment for production testers and calibration stations from requirements through internal or vendor build, installation, validation, and continuous improvement for aircraft, dock, pod, and subassembly builds.
• Partner on tester acceptance criteria and validate fixture contributions to: test coverage, pass/fail limits, golden-unit strategy, GR&R, capability targets, and production release criteria in partnership with Electrical Design, Firmware, Quality, and Operations.
• Collaborate with electrical and software engineers to integrate electrical and functional testers including harnessing, DAQ, sensors/actuators, power systems, safety interlocks, and mechanical fixtures to meet cycle-time and throughput targets.
• Partner on test automation and data pipelines (Python, LabVIEW/TestStand or equivalent) and validate fixture interactions to enable reproducible, high-throughput test flows, data logging, MES/MFG integration, and production dashboards.
• Drive measurable outcomes: increase first-pass yield, reduce false-fail rate, improve tester uptime/utilization, and shorten per-unit cycle time; set targets and report progress monthly.
• Troubleshoot and resolve production escalations on the floor: resolve fixture issues, tester instability, and product/tester correlation failures, partnering with electrical and software engineers on PCBA-level failures and software bugs under time pressure.
• Support cross-functional launches: coordinate requirements, validation plans, training, calibration schedules, spares strategy, and change control with Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Technicians, Operations, and external vendors.
• Identify and deploy scalable tester architectures and automation that reduce operator steps, minimize touch time, and standardize interfaces across lines.
• Produce and maintain test documentation: test procedures, maintenance/calibration plans, validation records, and change-control artifacts required for production readiness and traceability.

Also

What You’ll Bring

• 2+ years building production test systems, automated test equipment, or end-of-line testers for electro-mechanical or mechatronic products; demonstrated ownership of multiple shipped tester programs.
• BS in Electrical, Mechatronics, Mechanical, Computer Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Deep practical skills in instrumentation, signal measurement, power delivery, harnessing, connectorization, sensor/actuator interfaces, and PCBA debug with hands-on shop-floor experience.
• Strong test automation experience: Python preferred; experience with LabVIEW, TestStand, or embedded test frameworks and integrating DAQ, scopes, DMMs, power supplies, and electronic loads.
• Proficiency with embedded/product interfaces (CAN, UART, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, USB) and strategies for validating communications and firmware-hardware interactions.
• Track record of delivering measurable production improvements (first-pass yield, cycle time, false-fail reduction, tester utilization, GR&R) and owning metrics reporting.
• Experience working directly on manufacturing floors during launches and escalations; willing to spend significant onsite time supporting shifts, debugging, and qualifying equipment.
• Comfortable with frequent cross-functional coordination and coordinating vendor builds, FAT/SAT, and production qualification activities.
• Must-have traits: rigorous attention to safety and traceability, decisive technical judgment under production pressure, practical hands-on test/debug capability, and insistence on measurable outcomes.
• Location & logistics: role is based at Coop, Zipline’s South San Francisco manufacturing site (onsite-first with regular floor presence); travel to other Zipline sites or vendor locations may be required for launches and validations.

Also

First-Year Success

• Deliver and validate production tester programs with documented acceptance criteria and production-release evidence.
• Reduce false failures and improve first-pass yield, cycle time, and tester uptime for supported lines.
• Sustain traceable, repeatable test execution and report progress against agreed production goals.

Nice to have

Nice to Have

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $125,000 - $145,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact.…

• 5–7 years of relevant experience preferred.