Hardware Test Engineer, Structures & Mechanisms

Namely; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 145,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline designs, builds, tests, and operates autonomous delivery aircraft that must perform across diverse environments. You will own mechanical heavy test and validation for flight-critical assemblies and system-level behaviors, developing test methods, equipment, automation, and evidence to prove performance while balancing speed and rigor.

This role spans test strategy, fixture design, instrumentation, data analysis, and failure investigation.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience in test engineering for flight-critical hardware.
• Ability to design and build mechanical test fixtures and automation.
• Experience with sensors, data acquisition, and test instrumentation.]
• Strong CAD skills and ability to prototype hardware.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain test stands and fixtures for structural components.
• Lead end-to-end validation campaigns from prototype to fleet deployment.
• Develop verification plans with coverage, margins, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead failure investigations and drive root-cause corrective actions.
• Coordinate with design, systems, and manufacturing teams to communicate test assets and evidence.

Skills

Test campaign ownership

Mechanical test rigs

Sensor integration

Data analysis

Python tooling

Tools

CAD

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, builds, tests, and operates autonomous delivery aircraft that need to operate at scale in a huge variety of environments. Testing is central to our ability to validate and deliver hardware and directly affect flight safety, fleet reliability, manufacturability, and the speed at which we scale service to new regions. At Zipline, test engineers have high ownership in the definition of our test campaigns, the development of our test assets and capabilities, and execution across development, validation, and manufacturing end of line tests.

As a Hardware Test Engineer on our Platform 2 Aircraft Structures & Mechanisms, you will own mechanical heavy test and validation for flight critical assemblies, mechanism performance, and system-level behaviors. You will develop the test methods, equipment, automation, and evidence needed to prove that the aircraft components meet its functional, safety, reliability, environmental, and lifetime requirements while balancing speed and rigor to ensure we have the best understanding of our hardware performance.

This is a hands-on individual-contributor role spanning test strategy, fixture design, instrumentation, experimental execution, data analysis, and failure investigation. You will work closely with design engineers and provide critical feedback to improve designs while maintaining independent judgement about test adequacy, product risk, and release readiness. The best candidates are those who are comfortable as a full-stack mechanical engineer that can go broad or deep depending on the challenge at hand and is looking for real ownership and impact of their hardware.

What You'll Do

• Design, analyze, build, commission, and maintain custom test stands, fixtures, environmental setups, automated cycle rigs, and representative system test articles
• Own end-to-end development and execution of validation campaigns of major structural and mechanism components from prototype through fleet deployment
• Develop verification plans with clear coverage, traceability, sample sizes, margins and acceptance criteria to demonstrate structural strength, fatigue, mechanism performance, high-cycle life, wear, and much more over thousands of flights and years of duty.
• Lead failure investigations from test or flight using physical inspection, teardown, dimensional measurements, logs, and instrumentation to drive failures to root cause and permanent corrective action
• Work directly design, systems, and manufacturing partner teams to clearly communicate test asset functions, present test evidence, unresolved risks, and release recommendations.

What You'll Bring

• Proven ownership of high performance or low margin mechanical or electromechanical hardware validation through development, qualification, production ramp, and field deployment.
• Deep hands-on experience designing and building mechanical test rigs, fixtures, instrumented assemblies, and automated cycle-test systems.
• Strong mechanical fundamentals and comfort designing in CAD
• Practical experience selecting, installing, calibrating, and troubleshooting sensors and data‑acquisition systems.
• Experience developing automated test and analysis tools using Python or an equivalent language.
• Track record finding root causes for complex or intermittent failures and verifying that corrective actions prevent recurrence.
• Ability to translate imperfect field data into representative laboratory tests and actionable engineering conclusions.
• Experience working with design teams, suppliers, manufacturing, and technicians to execute test programs under aggressive schedules.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including concise test plans, reproducible reports, and evidence-based readiness recommendations.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $145,000 - $225,000. Please note that these are starting salary ranges that represent multiple internal levels. The final cash pay will depend on experience, qualifications, skills, location, and projected impact. Total compensation will also include equity, incentives, and benefits such as medical, dental, vision, paid time off, and more.

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 traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you'd like to learn more about Zipline and our teams, feel free to check out our Instagram, one of our Reddit AMAs, or our website.