Environmental Test Technician

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline seeks a Structural Testing professional to support environmental chambers and vibration testing within our R&D facilities in the U.S. This role focuses on maintaining 30+ chambers, performing diagnostics, and enabling rapid testing for flight-relevant hardware.

You will work closely with design and reliability teams to keep test systems running and to feed high-quality data back into the design loop.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with mechanical, electrical, or lab test equipment.
• Ability to interpret PLC ladder logic, schematics, and drawings.
• Experience on hardware/software projects with hardware engineers.
• Strong written and verbal communication with attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Maintain 30+ environmental test chambers used in R&D testing.
• Perform installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and repairs for environmental chambers.
• Schedule preventative maintenance and maximize equipment uptime.
• Assist with delivery drone R&D environmental test setups and training.
• Diagnose mechanical, electrical, and water systems and interpret diagrams.
• Order spare parts, manage inventory, and coordinate contractors.
• Provide on-call support to emergencies on a rotating basis.
• Support vibration lab and dynamic testing, and develop fixtures.
• Instrument assets, collect data, and validate tests against flight data.
• Lead root-cause analysis and write reports with design recommendations.
• Collaborate with Test Technicians and Engineers on site.

Skills

Mechanical troubleshooting

Electrical testing

PLC ladder logic

Data analysis

Tools

DAQ systems

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

Have you ever had the experience of buying a product and having it break or become defectiveout of the box quickly and vow you never want to experience that again? If yes, this could be theposition for you! As a critical member of the Structural Testing team, you will be part of ourmission to make sure that experience is never had by the doctors who rely on us every day.In this role, you will split your time across two essential functions within our R&D test facilities:maintaining and supporting 30+ environmental test chambers used in engineering validation,and executing dynamic and vibration tests across our test assets. You will partner closely withdesign and reliability teams, providing testing support to increase the speed at which they canproduce high-quality designs.

What You'll Do

Environmental Chambers & R&D Test Support:

• Maintain 30+ environmental test chambers used in R&D testing.
• Perform installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and repairs for a mix of R&Denvironmental test chamber systems (Espec, Test Equity, Q-Lab).
• Schedule and conduct preventative maintenance including cleaning, consumables,inspections, and performance testing toward maximizing equipment uptime.
• Assist staff with delivery drone R&D environmental test setups, train users on equipmentprogramming, and uphold continuous operation of the equipment.
• Diagnose and repair mechanical, electrical, and water supply systems.
• Interpret PLC ladder logic, schematics, blueprints, and mechanical diagrams.
• Order, inventory, and manage spare parts, materials, and equipment.
• Coordinate and oversee 3rd-party contractors performing maintenance or repairs.
• Provide on-call response to emergencies according to criticality on a rotating basis withother technicians on the team.

Structural & Vibration Testing:

• Support the vibration lab, including electrodynamic shakers, HALT chambers, and othertest systems.
• Execute test plans and develop fixtures for dynamic testing.
• Create test setups to match engineering specifications, which includes interpretation oftest procedures and diagrams, instrumentation, data acquisition, test article diagnostics,and front-line root causing.
• Instrument test assets, collect periodic data, and validate lab tests by comparing results
  with real flight data.
• Perform first-pass data analysis, lead root-causing efforts, and write detailed reportsdriving to root cause using data and first-order analysis to inform designrecommendations.
• Partner with Test Technicians and Engineers across diverse test campaigns, includingon-site support at flight test locations.

What You'll Bring

• Hands-on experience operating, maintaining, or troubleshooting mechanical, electrical, or lab test equipment.
• Ability to interpret PLC ladder logic, electrical specifications, schematics, blueprints, and mechanical drawings.
• Experience working on hardware/software projects and collaborating with hardware engineers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to organize data in a way that is easy to understand and present facts clearly.
• Hands-on experience in a machine shop, with proficiency in operating common mechanical equipment.
• Preferred (but not required): Prior experience with HVAC/refrigeration systems, data acquisition systems (DAQs), sensors, instrumentation, or vibration controllers.
• Physical ability to climb ladders, lift equipment, and work in confined spaces.
• Flexibility to participate in a rotating on-call schedule and support shifting lab test priorities.

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.