Senior Aeroelastic & Rotordynamics Engineer, GFEM Lead

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 215,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline, the world’s leading drone delivery company, is seeking a Senior Structural Engineer based in South San Francisco to own global FE models, drive design trades, and ensure safety and reliability of delivery aircraft. You will lead GFEM development, correlate tests with simulations, and work across design, reliability, and flight operations.

You will apply first-principles analysis, manage multi‑engineer teams, and support field operations.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of structural analysis experience in aircraft or aerospace.
• Hands-on hardware experience with physical testing and verification.
• Experience owning a top-level GFEM or system-level model.
• Ability to define instrumentation and correlate models with test data.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain the Global Finite Element Model (GFEM) and ensure it is the single source of truth for the team.
• Produce rapid analysis studies and design guidance within 24–48 hours to match evolving configurations.
• Perform static, dynamic, stability, and damage-tolerance analyses for metallic and composite structures; support certification.
• Plan tests, instrumentation, and post-test correlation workflows; tune models to match data.
• Lead root-cause investigations for test and field failures and implement corrective actions.
• Collaborate with design, systems, reliability, test, and flight operations; mentor engineers in GFEM practices.
• Support flight-test campaigns and field remediation events, providing rapid fixes and guidance.
• Aim for measurable outcomes: reduce unit cost per delivery, improve GFEM release cadence, and lower fleet failures.

Skills

Structural analysis

GFEM modeling

FEM/FEA

Hands-on hardware

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

NX/Nastran

FEMAP

ANSYS

Python scripting

MATLAB

Job description

Zipline, the world’s leading drone delivery company, is seeking a Senior Structural Engineer based in South San Francisco to own global FE models, drive design trades, and ensure safety and reliability of delivery aircraft. You will lead GFEM development, correlate tests with simulations, and work across design, reliability, and flight operations.

You will apply first-principles analysis, manage multi‑engineer teams, and support field operations.