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Zipline is the world's largest autonomous drone delivery service, operating on four continents and completing millions of deliveries of blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. The company has flown over 140 million commercial autonomous miles and is scaling production from tens to thousands of units per week over the next 1–3 years.
As a Senior Manufacturing Engineer, you will own end-to-end industrialization of assigned assembly lines and feeder sub-assemblies for Zipline's aircraft, docks, and logistics hardware. Your work connects aerospace-quality manufacturing with reliable field operations and rapid production growth. Your initial priority is to bring a complex electro-mechanical sub-assembly in-house and validate its production line within months.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own end-to-end industrialization from concept, tooling, and pilot builds through production release and sustainment
- Design, procure, fabricate, install, and commission fixtures, gauges, tooling, workstations, and ergonomic operator flows at manufacturing sites
- Define, execute, and sign off on process validation, including PFMEAs, control plans, capability studies (Cp/Cpk), first-article inspections, pilot builds, and production-release criteria
- Own first-pass yield, throughput, takt, mean time between failures, downtime, and cost-of-poor-quality metrics; drive improvements against quarterly targets
- Lead DFM reviews and tradeoffs with product design to reduce assembly time, simplify inspection, and lower cost per unit while meeting aerospace safety and field-reliability requirements
- Investigate escalated production issues and escapes, validate root causes, implement corrective and preventive actions, and update control plans
- Create, validate, and maintain SOPs, work instructions, control plans, and training materials; train and qualify technicians and line leads
- Coordinate execution with Design Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Maintenance, and Ops Program Management
- Plan capacity and production scaling against demand milestones, including layout, utilities, equipment, and staffing tradeoffs
- Support on-site production escalations, including occasional off-shift or weekend interventions during critical ramps or outages, and travel to manufacturing sites as required
Success in 6–12 months means delivering a validated pilot line with documented process controls and demonstrated Cp/Cpk targets, achieving first-pass yield and throughput targets, and meeting the production-release window while stabilizing yield and throughput through cross-functional execution.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 7+ years of hands-on manufacturing engineering experience designing, building, and sustaining assembly lines for complex electro-mechanical products, with a track record of scaling volume by an order of magnitude
- BS in Mechanical Engineering or related field (required); advanced degree is a plus
- Practical mastery of PFMEA, control plans, SPC, capability analysis (Cp/Cpk), first-article processes, and production validation
- Experience designing and validating custom fixtures, jigs, and tooling, with proficiency in 3D CAD; Siemens NX preferred
- Experience with MES/ERP and statistical tools such as Minitab, JMP, or Excel to measure and improve yield and process capability
- Demonstrated cross-functional DFM decisions that balance cost, manufacturability, safety, and field reliability
- End-to-end project ownership with minimal oversight, including planning, budgeting, procurement, commissioning, and sustaining production lines
- Hands-on approach to manufacturing, careful attention to process details, clear communication of tradeoffs under schedule pressure, and commitment to safety and quality
- Accountability for ramp milestones and agreed yield, throughput, and cost targets, with a structured approach to preventing production escapes and meeting release criteria
