Senior Mechanical Simulation Engineer – Avionics & Electronics Packaging

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 and The Role

Zipline builds autonomous aircraft that operate in demanding real-world environments where electronic systems must continue to function through vibration, shock, temperature extremes, weather exposure, manufacturing variation, and years of fleet operation. The reliability of an electronic module depends not only on its electrical design, but also on its structural integrity, thermal performance, packaging architecture, material selection, fastening strategy, and interactions with surrounding assemblies.

As a Simulation Engineer for Avionics, you will own the simulation strategy that enables robust electronic hardware from concept through production and fleet deployment. You will develop structural, thermal, and multi-physics models that predict how avionics, compute modules, sensors, communication systems, and power electronics behave throughout their operating life. Your work will directly influence architecture decisions, design margins, manufacturing approaches, and validation strategies before hardware is built.

You will work closely with Mechanical, Electrical, RF, EMC, Optical, Systems, Reliability, Manufacturing, and Test engineers. Rather than serving as a downstream analysis resource, you will help drive design decisions through first-principles engineering, high-fidelity simulation, and correlation with physical testing.

The work

What You'll Do

• Own the simulation strategy for electronic modules and electromechanical assemblies throughout concept development, design, validation, production ramp, and field support.
• Develop structural finite element models for electronics housings, PCB assemblies, brackets, connectors, flex circuits, fasteners, heat sinks, shields, and integrated avionics modules.
• Perform static structural analyses including contact mechanics, bolt preload, fastener retention, housing deformation, sealing interfaces, component stresses, and structural load paths.
• Perform dynamic analyses including modal, harmonic response, random vibration, shock, and fatigue to evaluate durability throughout transportation, manufacturing, and flight environments.
• Develop thermal simulations for electronics cooling using conduction, convection, and radiation to ensure components remain within operating limits during all mission phases.
• Support development of cooling architectures including blowers, ducts, heat sinks, vapor chambers, thermal interface materials, cold plates, and enclosure ventilation.
• Evaluate thermo-mechanical behavior caused by coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch across PCBAs, electronic packages, thermal interface materials, adhesives, housings, and structural interfaces.
• Predict PCB deformation, solder joint loading, package stresses, connector retention, and mechanical interactions resulting from thermal cycling and environmental loading.
• Perform coupled structural and thermal analyses to understand interactions between temperature, deformation, preload loss, contact pressure, and structural stiffness.
• Correlate simulation results with laboratory testing including strain measurements, displacement measurements, vibration testing, thermal testing, environmental qualification, and field observations.
• Build simplified analytical models and hand calculations to verify simulation assumptions and establish design intuition before developing detailed numerical models.
• Support design reviews by identifying mechanical, thermal, and reliability risks before hardware release.
• Work directly with suppliers to obtain material properties, validate manufacturing assumptions, and evaluate production variation within simulation models.
• Investigate prototype, production, and field failures using simulation, physical testing, inspection data, and root-cause analysis to identify failure mechanisms and implement corrective actions.

Also

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience performing structural and thermal simulation of complex electromechanical or electronic systems from concept through production.
• Strong fundamentals in structural mechanics, heat transfer, materials science, fatigue, vibration, contact mechanics, and thermal expansion.
• Experience performing linear and nonlinear finite element analyses including contact, bolt preload, large deformation, and material nonlinearity.
• Experience performing modal, harmonic response, random vibration, shock, and fatigue analyses.
• Experience developing steady-state and transient thermal models for electronics cooling and thermal management.
• Strong understanding of thermo-mechanical behavior including CTE mismatch, preload retention, thermal stresses, package deformation, and material interactions.
• Experience modeling complex assemblies with realistic contacts, fasteners, compliant materials, seals, thermal interface materials, adhesives, and manufacturing variation.
• Experience using commercial simulation tools such as Abaqus, ANSYS Mechanical, Siemens Simcenter 3D/Nastran, Altair OptiStruct, COMSOL, or equivalent.
• Ability to correlate simulation predictions with laboratory testing and understand discrepancies between physical hardware and numerical models.
• Strong understanding of electronics packaging, PCB assemblies, electronic components, connectors, shielding, and mechanical integration.
• Experience developing first-principles calculations alongside numerical simulations to establish engineering confidence.
• Programming or scripting experience using Python, MATLAB, or similar tools to automate model generation, post-processing, or optimization studies.
• Clear written and verbal communication with the ability to document assumptions, validation evidence, model limitations, engineering tradeoffs, and design recommendations.
• This role is based in South San Francisco and requires regular hands-on work in the lab supporting prototype builds, testing, failure investigations, and simulation correlation.
• Periodic travel to suppliers, contract manufacturers, environmental test facilities, and qualification laboratories may be required.

Nice to have

Nice to Have

• Experience with optical simulations for imaging systems, sensors, illumination systems, or optomechanical assemblies using Zemax, FRED, LightTools, TracePro, or similar tools.…