Environmental Test Technician

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco, CA is seeking a hands-on Environmental Test Technician to support R&D environmental chambers and vibration testing. You’ll work with mechanical, electrical, and data acquisition tools to ensure reliability and performance of flight-critical test assets.

Role involves maintaining 30+ environmental chambers, performing preventive maintenance, interpreting diagrams and PLC logic, and collaborating with engineers on test setups and diagnostics.

Qualifications

• 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.

Responsibilities

• Maintain 30+ environmental test chambers used in R&D testing.
• Perform installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and repairs for Espec, Test Equity, and Q-Lab systems.
• Schedule and conduct preventative maintenance including cleaning, consumables, inspections, and performance testing.
• Assist staff with delivery drone R&D environmental test setups, train users on equipment programming.
• 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.
• (continues in same vein to cover vibration testing duties)
• Support the vibration lab, including electrodynamic shakers, HALT chambers, and other test systems.

Skills

Lab equipment ops

PLC ladder logic

Hardware-software collab

Communication skills

Data organization

Machine shop

HVAC/DAQs

Physical stamina

On-call flexibility

Tools

Espec

Test Equity

Q-Lab

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.

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 defective out of the box quickly and vow you never want to experience that again? If yes, this could be the position for you! As a critical member of the Structural Testing team, you will be part of our mission 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 with design and reliability teams, providing testing support to increase the speed at which they can produce 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&D environmental 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 equipment programming, 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 with other technicians on the team.

Structural & Vibration Testing:

• Support the vibration lab, including electrodynamic shakers, HALT chambers, and other test systems.
• Execute test plans and develop fixtures for dynamic testing.
• Create test setups to match engineering specifications, which includes interpretation of test 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 reports driving to root cause using data and first-order analysis to inform design recommendations.
• Partner with Test Technicians and Engineers across diverse test campaigns, including on-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.