Flight Test Engineering Lead for Autonomous Drones

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking an experienced Flight Test Engineering Lead to define validation strategy for new aircraft capabilities, software releases, hardware changes, and operations.

You will design and oversee flight test campaigns, develop automated test infrastructure and data pipelines, and lead cross-functional teams across software, electrical, mechanical, controls, autonomy, cloud, and regulatory domains to deliver release-ready evidence.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing, developing, validating, or testing complex autonomous systems (UAS preferred).
• Experience leading flight test teams while remaining technically engaged.
• Experience turning test campaigns into planning, execution, analysis and release decisions.
• Systems‑level judgment across software, embedded, electrical, mechanical, controls, ops and regulatory constraints.
• Experience building test automation, analytics tooling, data pipelines, or scalable validation systems.
• Ability to lead cross‑functional programs and communicate safety, risk and tradeoffs to engineers and leadership.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally for flight testing and site support.

Responsibilities

• Lead, grow, and develop the Flight Test Engineering team.
• Own the validation strategy for new aircraft capabilities, software releases, hardware changes, delivery operations, docking and charging systems, fleet behavior, and regulatory concepts.
• Define campaign objectives, success criteria, risk posture, and go/no-go frameworks with multiple cross-functional teams.
• Build and oversee flight test campaigns that produce clear release-readiness evidence and expand coverage.
• Improve automated test infrastructure, data pipelines, anomaly detection, reporting, and correctness metrics.
• Choose validation modalities to focus flight testing on high-value learning.
• Partner with Flight Test Operations on site readiness and testing in new geographies and environments.

Skills

Flight test leadership

Autonomous systems

Test campaign planning

Test automation & data pipelines

Cross-functional collaboration

Safety & regulatory communication

Travel readiness

Job description

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking an experienced Flight Test Engineering Lead to define validation strategy for new aircraft capabilities, software releases, hardware changes, and operations.

You will design and oversee flight test campaigns, develop automated test infrastructure and data pipelines, and lead cross-functional teams across software, electrical, mechanical, controls, autonomy, cloud, and regulatory domains to deliver release-ready evidence.