ABOUT ZIPLINE

Do you want to change the world? Zipline uses drones to deliver critical and lifesaving medicine to thousands of hospitals serving millions of people in multiple countries. Our mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. Join Zipline and help us make this a reality for billions of people.

ABOUT YOU AND THE ROLE

Does working on complex, integrated electro-mechanical aircraft and ground systems from conception through fully scaled production and world-wide deployment excite you? Does hearing people say something is too difficult or impossible make you want to jump in head first? Do you enjoy being the “go to” engineer on the ground, analyzing system performance, solving problems live when our systems are powered on for the first time? At Zipline our work is intended for the field. Patients are counting on it today--there is no time for aiming low or for coming up short. If leveraging your talent to create elegantly engineered solutions excites you read on!

Zipline believes access to medical care should not depend on your GPS coordinates. We are at the forefront of a logistics revolution, using autonomous aircraft to deliver just-in-time, lifesaving medical supplies on 3 continents around the world right now, 7 days a week.  Are you interested in building a system that 200 million people will depend on with their lives?

WHAT YOU'LL DO

As a mechanical engineer, you will own complex issues and use your core technical skills to drive to innovative solutions for aircraft and/or ground systems. You’ll be comfortable pivoting and working on multiple projects. You may be responsible for developing an urgent repair on a fielded system this week. Next week, you’ll be clean-sheet designing a cutting edge mechanism for a next generation air vehicle. You do not let “how it is normally done” artificially limit the potential solution space but leverage your experiences, knowledge, and first principles thinking towards problem solving to create an optimal product. Physical scale does not daunt you whether the mechanism fits within your hand or is 10 meters long, you will engineer systems that will only come together days before they are needed, so we’re counting on you to make sure they work the first time. You are comfortable solving complex problems with little direction and maximum autonomy. Hand calcs guide your thinking and designs and help you quickly bound a problem. You are biased to action and an efficient optimizer leaning on best practices and proven processes seemingly always getting things done in half the time. You are a technical mentor and resource to others on the team, able to share best practices and review work with members on the team.

MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE / SKILL SETS

• Proven track record of complex design for subassemblies or full systems (concept, prototype, validation, production)
• Demonstrated CAD fluency for system level ownership - 3D/2D 
• Hands on fabrication experience. Comfortable ordering parts and building your own prototypes. Competent with hand tools and basic electronics.
• Demonstrated core competencies - GD&T, FEA for multi-body structural and thermal applications, design for assembly & field operations
• Capable of simplifying a complex problem and provide an initial analysis to scope critical constraints and feature sizing with hand calcs (beam, buckling, bolts)
• Knowledge in applying appropriate FOS and margin to human safety critical application (design margin tables, structural joint calculations)
• Capable of a root-causing an issue and developing mitigation plans and design solutions
• Experience creating high fidelity mathematical system models (Matlab, Python, MathCAD, Excel) 
• Experience forming a test strategy, documenting test plans, and executing test to learn about design capability
• Excellent communication - written, verbal, and visual. You know how to tailor to your audience with the right level of technical depth
• Prior technical mentorship to more junior colleagues (Expected for Senior roles only)

NICE TO HAVE

• NX is your primary CAD tool
• Prior experience designing automated capex industrial equipment or robotics requiring 99.9% uptime
• Working knowledge using electrical components & microcontrollers (ex. raspberry pi)
• Experience designing to aerospace or automotive level validation standards
• Comfortable with data analysis in Python

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

If you’d like to learn more about Zipline and our teams, feel free to check out our Instagram, one of our Reddit AMA’s, or our website!