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.
As an Industrial Engineer on the Manufacturing Engineering team, you will design the factory layouts, work methods, and capacity models that enable Zipline to scale production reliably.
You will connect demand, labor, equipment, space, and capital investment through time studies, standard work, line balancing, and production-system design. Working directly on the factory floor, you will turn observations and production data into practical changes to station loading, operator movement, layouts, and manufacturing capacity.
Your work will help the team determine how much we can build, where the constraints are, and which investments in people, equipment, automation, or space will support the next stage of production.
What You'll Do- Own factory performance and production-system design, connecting individual processes into an efficient end-to-end system.
- Improve factory layouts, workstations, operator movement, and material presentation.
- Lead time studies, define standard work and labor models, and balance station loading against takt time.
- Build capacity and capital-investment scenarios for labor, equipment, tooling, shifts, floor space, and future demand.
- Identify current and future bottlenecks and implement improvements in throughput, utilization, cycle time, labor efficiency, and cost.
- Define WIP, buffer, queue, and rework strategies that protect output while reducing inventory and lead time.
- Partner with Manufacturing, Production, Supply Chain, and Material Planning on line architecture, lineside availability, and replenishment.
- Develop factory KPIs, decision tools, make-versus-buy analyses, and investment cases; carry improvements through implementation.
- Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 2+ years of experience in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
- Strong understanding of production system design, capacity planning, line balancing, takt time, cycle-time analysis, standard work, and manufacturing flow.
- Demonstrated experience performing time studies and translating observations into labor and capacity models.
- Experience designing or improving manufacturing layouts and material-flow systems.
- Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn imperfect production data into clear engineering and business decisions.
- Experience identifying manufacturing constraints and driving improvements in throughput, productivity, utilization, lead time, or cost.
- Ability to build financial and operational models that support CapEx, automation, make/buy, and factory-scaling decisions.
- Strong spreadsheet and data-analysis skills; comfort working with manufacturing data from ERP, MES, labor-tracking, and production systems.
- Ability to work directly on the factory floor, understand how production actually operates, and collaborate effectively with technicians, manufacturing engineers, production leaders, quality engineers, supply chain, and design engineering.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to convert complex analysis into simple recommendations and executable plans.
- A high degree of ownership. You are comfortable identifying an ambiguous factory-level problem, defining what needs to be measured, developing a solution, and driving it through implementation.
- 5–7 years of relevant experience preferred.
- Experience scaling a complex electromechanical product from NPI or low-rate production into higher-volume manufacturing.
- Experience with discrete-event simulation, optimization, operations research, or other production-system modeling techniques.
- Experience with SQL, Python, BI tools, or other methods for analyzing large manufacturing datasets.
- Experience with ERP and MES platforms and developing manufacturing dashboards or operational reporting systems.
- Experience developing business cases for automation or major manufacturing equipment.
- Experience with Lean manufacturing concepts, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, value-stream mapping, or structured continuous-improvement methodologies.
- Experience supporting factory expansions, new production lines, or greenfield manufacturing operations.
The starting cash range for this role is $104,000 - $170,000. 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. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.
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!
For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
Zipline South San Francisco, California, USA Office
South San Francisco, CA, United States
Zipline Half Moon Bay, California, USA Office
Half Moon Bay, United States
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