Field Systems Engineer Pipeline

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Field Systems Engineer in California to own the health and performance of Platform 2 subsystems. You’ll investigate complex field failures using telemetry, software tools, physical inspection, and hands-on testing, leading containment to permanent fixes.

You will work across avionics, perception, powertrain, ground systems, and structures, partnering with design, test, reliability, and manufacturing to deliver reliable, safe, and cost-effective solutions.

Qualifications

• 3–8 years of relevant experience in field engineering, systems engineering, reliability, failure analysis, test engineering, product engineering, or hardware/software validation.
• A degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, robotics, computer engineering, computer science, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a technical authority for Platform 2 systems, developing understanding of design, behavior, failure modes, and operation.
• Lead investigations of complex field issues using telemetry, logs, bench testing, and first-principles reasoning.
• Provide technical leadership during field escalations, including safe containment and hands-on troubleshooting.
• Drive issues from detection through root cause, corrective action, validation, and fleet implementation.
• Build software, dashboards, automated analyses, and diagnostic tools to identify degraded behavior before disruption.
• Collaborate with design, test, reliability, manufacturing, quality, and operations teams to balance safety, reliability, availability, and cost.
• Translate field experience into engineering requirements and influence future designs for reliability and maintainability.
• Develop and validate troubleshooting, inspection, repair, and return-to-service procedures.

Skills

Field engineering

Systems thinking

Root-cause analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Electrical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Robotics

Tools

Python

SQL

MATLAB

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

Field Systems Engineering sits at the intersection of Engineering and Operations. We are responsible for understanding how Platform 2 performs in the real world, resolving its hardest technical problems, and turning what we learn into lasting improvements to the product and the way it is operated and maintained.

As a Field Systems Engineer, you will own the health and performance of one or more Platform 2 subsystems. You will investigate complex and often intermittent failures using telemetry, software tools, physical inspection, and hands‑on testing. You will lead issues from initial containment through root cause and corrective action, partnering closely with design engineers to ensure fixes are implemented permanently.

We are hiring across several technical disciplines, including:

• Avionics, electrical systems, and embedded software
• Perception, sensing, autonomy, and system software
• Powertrain, batteries, motors, and power electronics
• Ground systems, charging, and electromechanical equipment
• Structures, mechanisms, and system integration

You do not need to be an expert in every area. Strong candidates bring deep expertise in at least one discipline, sound engineering fundamentals, and the ability to reason across hardware, software, and operational boundaries.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as a technical authority for your assigned Platform 2 systems, developing a deep understanding of their design, behavior, failure modes, and operational use.
• Lead the investigation of complex field issues by combining telemetry and log analysis, physical failure analysis, bench testing, operator feedback, and first‑principles reasoning.
• Provide technical leadership during field escalations, including developing safe containment plans and supporting hands‑on troubleshooting when necessary.
• Drive issues from detection through root cause, corrective action, validation, and fleet implementation.
• Build software, dashboards, automated analyses, and diagnostic tools that identify degraded or off‑nominal behavior before it causes operational disruption.
• Use fleet data to identify reliability trends, prioritize engineering work, and measure whether corrective actions delivered the expected improvement.
• Partner with design, test, reliability, manufacturing, quality, and operations teams to develop solutions that balance safety, reliability, availability, and cost.
• Translate field experience into clear engineering requirements and influence future designs for reliability, diagnosability, testability, maintainability, and ease of operation.
• Develop and validate troubleshooting, inspection, repair, maintenance, and return‑to‑service procedures.
• Improve the technical systems used to communicate known issues, fleet risks, troubleshooting guidance, and engineering changes to field teams.
• Spend time working directly with the hardware and alongside the operators and technicians who use and maintain it.

Discipline Areas

Depending on your background and the needs of the team, your primary area of ownership may include:

Avionics and Embedded Systems

• Diagnose failures involving flight computers, radios, GNSS, cameras, sensors, power distribution, connectors, and vehicle networks.
• Debug intermittent electrical, timing, communications, signal‑integrity, EMI, thermal, and embedded‑software problems.
• Use tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, multimeters, bus analyzers, debuggers, and hardware‑in‑the‑loop test systems.
• Partner with electrical and embedded‑software engineers to validate root causes and implement robust fixes.

Perception, Autonomy, and Systems Software

• Investigate anomalous vehicle behavior using logs, telemetry, sensor data, simulation, and system‑level testing.
• Diagnose problems involving perception, localization, mapping, sensor performance, state estimation, and hardware‑software interactions.
• Develop automated log‑analysis, replay, simulation, and fleet‑monitoring tools.
• Work with autonomy, perception, embedded, and systems teams to distinguish environmental, hardware, software, and integration failure modes.

Powertrain and Energy Systems

• Diagnose issues involving batteries, motors, motor controllers, propellers, charging, thermal behavior, power electronics, and embedded motor control.
• Analyze performance degradation, efficiency, capacity, thermal events, intermittent communications, and model‑versus‑actual behavior.
• Develop automated methods to detect abnormal powertrain performance and emerging degradation.
• Drive corrective actions spanning hardware design, controls, software detection, manufacturing, and maintenance.

Ground Systems and Mechatronics

• Troubleshoot automated ground equipment, charging systems, communications, mechanisms, sensors, controls, and supporting infrastructure.
• Analyze system availability and identify the failure modes responsible for operational downtime.
• Debug complex electromechanical issues in both field and laboratory environments.
• Improve system architecture, diagnostics, serviceability, and recovery from degraded conditions.

Structures, Mechanisms, and Integration

• Investigate structural failures, mechanism wear, damage, fatigue, life consumption, and performance degradation.
• Develop inspection methods and data‑driven maintenance intervals as understanding of the hardware evolves.
• Design and execute tests that reproduce field conditions and validate corrective actions.
• Partner with design engineers to improve structural durability, mechanism reliability, integration, and maintainability.

What You’ll Bring

• Approximately 3–8 years of relevant experience in field engineering, systems engineering, reliability, failure analysis, test engineering, product engineering, or hardware/software validation.
• A degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, robotics, computer engineering, computer science, or equivalent practical experience.
• Deep technical capability in at least one relevant discipline, paired with the curiosity and fundamentals to investigate problems outside your immediate specialty.
• Demonstrated experience resolving complex or intermittent problems in real‑world systems.
• Strong data fluency and experience using Python, SQL, MATLAB, or similar tools to analyze logs, telemetry, test results, or fleet‑scale datasets.
• Hands‑on experience testing, debugging, or repairing physical systems.
• Experience leading structured root‑cause and corrective‑action work using methods such as fault‑tree analysis, 5‑Whys, FMEA, or equivalent approaches.
• The ability to move between detailed technical investigation and system‑level decision‑making.
• Strong written and verbal communication, including the ability to explain technical risk, evidence, and recommendations to engineering and operational audiences.
• A track record of taking ownership across organizational boundaries and driving ambiguous problems through implementation.
• A bias toward learning from the real system, validating assumptions with evidence, and delivering permanent improvements.

Helpful Experience

• Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, automotive, industrial automation, medical devices, or other safety‑or‑reliability‑critical systems.
• Experience with embedded C/C++, vehicle networks, telemetry pipelines, simulation, remote diagnostics, or over‑the‑air software systems.
• Experience with design validation methods such as vibration, thermal cycling, environmental testing, accelerated life testing, or HALT.
• Familiarity with reliability metrics, fleet health monitoring, prognostics, or condition‑based maintenance.
• Experience developing technical documentation, maintenance programs, service procedures, or operational tooling.
• Experience supporting distributed field operations or products deployed in varied and demanding environments.

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.