Lead Test Engineering for Robotic Systems

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco, CA, seeks a Test Engineering Manager for Dropbox to own test strategy, infrastructure, automation, and system-level evidence to scale production and fleet deployments.

You will lead a team of test engineers, translate requirements into measurable tests, and drive design and process changes to reduce field failures while collaborating with cross-functional teams in mechanical, electrical, and software domains.

Qualifications

• Proven experience managing a team of test/validation engineers for complex electromechanical or robotic products through development, qualification, production, and field deployment.
• Hands-on expertise designing test rigs, fixtures, instrumentation, DAQ, and automated test equipment; comfortable operating and iterating lab hardware.
• Strong systems judgment across mechanical hardware, sensors, electronics, embedded software, controls, and user interactions.
• Demonstrated skill with experimental design and statistical analysis: defining sample sizes, confidence intervals, acceleration models, and correlating lab-to-field performance.
• Track record driving failure investigations to a root cause and implementing design or process changes that measurably reduce field failures.
• Experience building test automation and analysis tools (Python, SQL, or equivalent) and authoring reproducible test reports and dashboards.
• Clear written and verbal communication; able to present tradeoffs and readiness recommendations to engineering and product leadership.
• Operate at the intensity required by customer-facing, unattended field systems: prioritize rapid learning while enforcing safety and reliability gates.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end test and validation for Dropbox: define measurable success criteria, test coverage, traceability, and exit gates from prototype through production.
• Lead and grow a team of test engineers: set technical standards, assign ownership, hire, and mentor engineers to deliver scope on schedule.
• Translate product requirements, hazards, customer workflows, and failure modes into test requirements and pass/fail criteria.
• Design and execute component, subsystem, and system-level tests measuring functionality, safety, reliability, lifetime, exposure, and fault recovery.
• Build and maintain automated test stands, fixtures, instrumentation, DAQ, and analysis tooling to increase throughput and repeatability.
• Define sample sizes, acceleration factors, confidence levels, and criteria to produce reliability evidence.
• Correlate lab and accelerated tests with production and field telemetry to validate test fidelity.
• Establish regression and release-readiness testing to catch hardware/software regressions before deployment.
• Lead failure investigations and root-cause analysis; drive actions into design and manufacturing.
• Partner with Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded Software, Systems, Reliability, Manufacturing, Operations to remove blockers.

Skills

Team management

Test engineering

Robotics hardware

Lab automation

Python

SQL

System-level validation

Statistical analysis

Technical communication

On-site collaboration

Tools

DAQ

Automated test equipment

Python

SQL

Job description

Zipline in South San Francisco, CA, seeks a Test Engineering Manager for Dropbox to own test strategy, infrastructure, automation, and system-level evidence to scale production and fleet deployments.

You will lead a team of test engineers, translate requirements into measurable tests, and drive design and process changes to reduce field failures while collaborating with cross-functional teams in mechanical, electrical, and software domains.