Senior Electromagnetic Motor Engineer for Autonomous Aircraft

Namely; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Motor Electromagnetic Engineer to develop and own modeling and validation capabilities for electric machines across our aircraft platforms.

You will build a common motor‑modeling framework enabling rapid design space exploration, performance tradeoffs, and integration with system‑level models. Collaboration across mechanical, thermal, controls, and flight‑ops teams is essential.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or PhD in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field with focus on electric machines.
• Strong understanding of electric‑machine fundamentals, including magnetic circuits, winding theory, d‑q models, saturation, losses, and thermal effects.
• Significant experience developing and interpreting finite‑element and reduced‑order models of electric machines.
• Experience with Motor‑CAD or similar software for electromagnetic, thermal, and performance modeling.
• Strong proficiency in MATLAB for model development, automation, data analysis, and visualization.
• Experience correlating electromagnetic models against dynamometer or hardware test results and diagnosing root causes.

Responsibilities

• Develop, validate, and maintain electromagnetic models for Zipline’s propulsion and auxiliary motors.
• Build a reusable and well‑governed library of motor models, assumptions, material data, winding definitions, simulation results, and validation evidence.
• Generate torque‑speed envelopes, efficiency maps, loss breakdowns, voltage and current requirements, flux‑linkage and inductance maps, demagnetization limits, and fault‑performance data.
• Create scalable design‑space “clouds” and perform sensitivity and uncertainty studies across geometry, materials, windings, temperature, tolerances, and operating conditions.
• Develop reduced‑order and surrogate models for aircraft optimization, mission simulation, controls development, and thermal analysis.
• Integrate motor models with inverter, battery, propeller or driven‑load, thermal, and aircraft mission models.

Skills

Electric‑machine fundamentals

Finite‑element modeling

Reduced‑order models

Motor‑CAD/JMAG/MAXWELL/COMSOL

MATLAB

Education

Master’s degree or PhD in EE/ME/Applied physics

Tools

Motor‑CAD

JMAG

Maxwell

COMSOL

Job description

Zipline is seeking a Motor Electromagnetic Engineer to develop and own modeling and validation capabilities for electric machines across our aircraft platforms.

You will build a common motor‑modeling framework enabling rapid design space exploration, performance tradeoffs, and integration with system‑level models. Collaboration across mechanical, thermal, controls, and flight‑ops teams is essential.