Hardware Reliability Engineer

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline seeks a Mechanical Hardware Reliability Engineer to define and deliver the safety and reliability attributes of our drone-delivery platforms. You will combine failure analysis, hands-on experiments, and statistical modeling to ensure resilience in harsh environments.

You will influence architecture choices, redundancy, fault tolerance, and accelerated tests, providing actionable guidance to design teams and shaping long-term reliability of Zipline’s autonomous systems.

Qualifications

• Experience applying reliability techniques to electromechanical systems.
• Ability to design and interpret accelerated life tests.
• Collaborate with design teams to reduce failure risk.

Responsibilities

• Define safety and reliability attributes for drone-delivery platforms.
• Develop and validate reliability models and verification methods.
• Identify risks early and guide design decisions with data.

Skills

Reliability engineering

Statistical modeling

Electromechanical

Data-driven decisions

Accelerated testing

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

MATLAB

Python

Reliability software

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

As a Mechanical Hardware Reliability Engineer, you will be responsible for defining and delivering the Safety and Reliability attribute of our latest drone-delivery systems. You’ll combine deep knowledge of failure phenomena in electromechanical devices, hands-on experimentation, and statistical modeling to ensure Zipline’s latest drone-delivery platforms survive the most demanding environments on Earth.

Your work will span from early architecture decisions, like where to apply redundancy, fail-operational strategies, and fault tolerance through the definition of accelerated tests, coding reliability models, and verification methods. You’ll uncover risks early, provide data to risk-based decisions, and guide design teams with clear, actionable recommendations. In doing so, you’ll directly shape the long-term reliability and safety of Zipline’s autonomous aircraft and ground infrastructure.