Head of Autonomous Flight Test Engineering

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Head of Autonomous Flight Test Engineering to lead the team that converts complex engineering questions into safe, evidence-based release decisions. You will own flight test strategy and campaigns, strengthening automation, data, and operating practices across Zipline.

You are a strong technical leader who can balance rigor with pace, grow a team, and oversee test architecture, risk assessment, and execution details for a rapidly evolving autonomous delivery system.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing, developing, validating, or testing complex autonomous systems or safety-critical systems.
• Experience leading flight test, system test, validation, or field test engineering teams.
• Experience taking complex test campaigns from objective definition through planning, execution, analysis, and release recommendation.

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 operational concepts.
• Define campaign objectives, success criteria, risk posture, and go/no-go frameworks with cross-functional teams.
• Build and oversee flight test campaigns that produce release-readiness evidence and expand regression coverage.
• Improve automated test infrastructure, data pipelines, anomaly detection, reporting, and metrics.
• Choose the appropriate validation modality—flight, simulation, or hardware/software-in-the-loop testing.
• Partner with Flight Test Operations on site readiness and testing in new geographies.
• Foster a strong safety culture and ensure compliance with regulations and internal standards.

Skills

Flight Test Leadership

Cross-functional Leadership

Test Automation

Systems Thinking

Data Analytics

Executive/Regulatory Communication

Willingness to Travel

Tools

Test Automation Tools

Data Pipelines

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 builds autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods through real‑world logistics networks. Flight test provides the evidence that aircraft, software, delivery operations, docking and charging systems, and fleet capabilities are ready for commercial operations.

As Head of Autonomous Flight Test Engineering, you will lead the team that converts complex engineering questions into safe, representative release evidence. You will own flight test strategy and campaigns while strengthening the automation, data, and operating practices that help Zipline learn quickly and make rigorous release decisions.

You are both a strong technical leader and a hands‑on systems thinker. You should be excited to lead and grow a team while diving into test architecture, data, automation, risk assessment, and execution details. You should bring strong judgment about when to move quickly, when to invest in durable infrastructure and process, and how to balance engineering rigor with the pace required to support a rapidly evolving autonomous delivery system.

What You'll Do

• 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 operational concepts.
• Define campaign objectives, success criteria, risk posture, and go/no‑go frameworks with Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Controls, Autonomy, Cloud, Systems, Product, and Regulatory teams.
• Build and oversee flight test campaigns that produce clear release‑readiness evidence and expand representative regression coverage across the end‑to‑end logistics system.
• Improve automated test infrastructure, data pipelines, anomaly detection, reporting, and correctness metrics to increase repeatability, test velocity, test capacity, and decision quality.
• Choose the appropriate validation modality—flight, simulation, software‑in‑the‑loop, hardware‑in‑the‑loop, or ground testing—to focus flight testing on the highest‑value learning.
• Partner with Flight Test Operations on site readiness, execution processes, operational scalability, and support for testing in new geographies and environments.
• Foster a strong safety culture across Flight Test Engineering and Operations, ensuring compliance with regulations and internal standards.

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years designing, developing, validating, or testing complex autonomous, robotic, aerospace, aviation, or safety‑critical systems; UAS experience is strongly preferred.
• Experience leading flight test, system test, validation, or field test engineering teams while staying technically engaged.
• Experience taking complex test campaigns from objective definition through planning, execution, analysis, and release recommendation.
• Systems‑level judgment across software, embedded, electrical, mechanical, controls, operations, and regulatory constraints.
• Experience building or integrating test automation, analytics tooling, data pipelines, or scalable validation systems that improve coverage and efficiency.
• Ability to lead cross‑functional technical programs and communicate safety, risk, and engineering tradeoffs to engineers, operators, executives, and regulatory partners.
• Comfort working in field environments with operational teams and willingness to travel domestically and internationally for flight testing, team leadership, and test‑site support.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $200,000-$280,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; 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 who are traditionally underrepresented in tech.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.