Electrical Engineer, Avionics

flyzipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline designs, builds, and operates autonomous delivery systems, and seeks an entry‑level Electrical Engineer to join the Avionics team in South San Francisco. You will design, integrate, validate, and release electrical hardware for aircraft and ground systems, working with hardware, firmware, software, manufacturing, test, and operations to ensure safety, robustness, and manufacturability.

This hands-on role requires strong fundamentals and internship or project experience with PCBAs, board

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Computer, Aerospace, or related field.
• Strong fundamentals in analog, digital, mixed-signal, power, sensing, and communication circuits.
• Hands-on experience with PCBAs, schematic capture, board bring-up, debugging, or hardware validation.
• Ability to use oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies, logic analyzers, or electronic loads.
• Ability to read schematics, datasheets, test plans, and layout/manufacturing documentation.
• Strong written and verbal communication, attention to detail, and openness to feedback.
• Ability to collaborate onsite with hardware, manufacturing, and test teams in South San Francisco.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to design and development of avionics and ground‑support PCBAs.
• Support schematic capture, component selection, interface definition, and board integration.
• Bring up new boards, run bench tests, collect data, and summarize results for validation.
• Coordinate with PCB layout, mechanical, and firmware teams to resolve interfaces and packaging issues.
• Support validation testing, troubleshooting, and root‑cause investigations.
• Contribute to requirements, test procedures, design documentation, and release packages.
• Participate in design reviews and evaluate tradeoffs across performance, reliability, weight, power, cost.
• Support prototype builds, production readiness, and fielded hardware improvements.
• Develop engineering judgment by documenting work and following problems to resolution.

Skills

Analog circuits

Digital circuits

Mixed-signal

Power electronics

Sensing & communications

PCBAs & schematics

Board bring-up

Electrical debugging

Hardware validation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field

Job description

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 designs, manufactures, and operates autonomous delivery systems that depend on reliable avionics, sensing, communications, power, and ground-support hardware. These systems must work in the real world, at fleet scale, across changing environments, manufacturing variation, field operations, and rapid product evolution.

As an Electrical Engineer on the Avionics team, you will contribute to the design, integration, validation, and release of electrical hardware for aircraft and supporting ground systems. You will work closely with experienced electrical, mechanical, firmware, software, manufacturing, test, quality, supply-chain, and operations teams to build hardware that is safe, robust, manufacturable, and ready for real-world use.

This is a hands‑on entry‑level role for someone with strong electrical engineering fundamentals and practical experience from internships, co‑ops, research, capstone projects, competition teams, or personal builds. You should be excited to learn quickly, work carefully in the lab, and grow into deeper subsystem ownership over time.

What You'll Do

• Contribute to the design and development of avionics and ground‑support PCBAs, including digital, analog, sensing, communications, power, and control circuits.
• Support schematic capture, component selection, interface definition, and board‑level integration with guidance from experienced engineers.
• Help bring up new boards, run bench tests, collect data, and summarize results to support design validation and release decisions.
• Work with PCB layout, mechanical engineering, and firmware teams to close interface, packaging, thermal, and manufacturability issues.
• Support validation testing, troubleshooting, and root‑cause investigations for issues found during bring‑up, qualification, manufacturing, or flight test.
• Contribute to requirements, test procedures, design documentation, release packages, and change‑control records for avionics hardware.
• Participate in design reviews and learn to evaluate tradeoffs across performance, reliability, manufacturability, weight, power, and cost.
• Work with manufacturing, test, quality, and operations teams to support prototype builds, production readiness, and fielded hardware improvements.
• Build good engineering judgment by asking questions early, documenting work clearly, and following problems through to resolution.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong fundamentals in analog, digital, mixed‑signal, power, sensing, and communication circuits.
• Hands‑on experience through coursework, internships, or projects with PCBAs, schematic capture, board bring‑up, electrical debugging, or hardware validation.
• Ability to use common lab equipment such as oscilloscopes, multimeters, power supplies, logic analyzers, or electronic loads.
• Ability to read schematics, datasheets, test plans, and basic layout or manufacturing documentation.
• Familiarity with structured debugging, documenting results, and communicating technical findings clearly.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, attention to detail, and a willingness to learn from feedback.
• Ability to collaborate onsite regularly with hardware, manufacturing, and test teams in South San Francisco.

Nice to Have

Internship or project experience in avi