Senior/Staff Field Systems Engineer - RF Systems

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Field Systems Engineer specializing in RF to own the investigation and permanent resolution of complex field issues across wireless communication and closely coupled electromechanical systems. You will combine fleet telemetry, RF measurements, and site data to drive hardware, firmware, and operational improvements.

The role requires collaboration across Mechanical, Electrical, RF, Navigation, and Operations teams, with the ability to reproduce failures in lab and field

Qualifications

• Proven experience resolving complex, intermittent field failures in autonomous systems, robotics, or high‑reliability environments.
• Deep expertise in RF systems, wireless communications, antennas, propagation, interference, link budgets, and RF measurement.
• Demonstrated ability to drive corrective actions across design, firmware, manufacturing, maintenance, and operations.

Responsibilities

• Own complex RF and connectivity field issues from escalation through containment and verified resolution.
• Lead technical triage during high‑impact field events and guide Operations, Maintenance, Deployment, and Engineering.
• Analyze mission logs, RF telemetry, packet statistics, navigation data, hardware health, and site configuration.
• Build structured hypothesis trees to distinguish RF, electrical, mechanical, firmware, networking, and navigation causes.
• Diagnose link‑margin degradation, interference, coexistence, multipath, polarization mismatch, and packet loss.
• Determine root causes across antennas, cables, harnesses, grounding, and power integrity.
• Work with Mechanical, Electrical, RF, Embedded Firmware, Networking, Navigation, and Operations teams.
• Partner with navigation teams to understand RF/GNSS/RTK impact on system behavior.
• Reproduce field failures in lab or sites using controlled experiments and fault injection.
• Develop test plans, link budgets, and acceptance criteria connecting analysis to field performance.
• Inspect and troubleshoot antennas, radios, RF cables, connectors, PCBAs, harnesses, and housings.
• Create automated diagnostics, dashboards, and health metrics to detect degradation early.

Skills

RF systems

Wireless communications

Antenna design

Field troubleshooting

Python

SQL

MATLAB

Diagnostics

Root-cause analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Documentation

Tools

Spectrum analyzers

Vector network analyzers

Oscilloscopes

Power meters

Packet analyzers

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 and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. These systems depend on RF links, antennas, embedded electronics, mechanical integration, networking, and navigation software working together across aircraft, droids, docks, ground infrastructure, and operational sites.

RF-related failures rarely present as simple RF problems. A communications dropout may originate from antenna placement, mechanical damage, connector wear, power integrity, firmware timing, interference, network configuration, multipath, site geometry, or navigation behavior. Resolving these issues requires an engineer who can move across disciplinary boundaries and use field evidence to determine what is actually happening.

As a Field Systems Engineer specializing in RF Systems, you will own the investigation and permanent resolution of complex field issues involving wireless communication, navigation, and closely coupled electromechanical systems. You will combine fleet telemetry, mission logs, RF measurements, physical inspection, field experiments, and system knowledge to identify root causes and drive corrective actions into hardware, firmware, manufacturing, maintenance, and operations.

You will work across Zipline’s products and platforms wherever RF performance affects safety, reliability, availability, or operational performance.

You will additionally establish cross-company diagnostic methods, technical standards, observability strategies, and systemic improvements that prevent entire classes of field failures.

What You'll Do

• Own complex RF and connectivity field issues from initial escalation through containment, root cause, corrective action, and verified fleet resolution.
• Lead technical triage during high-impact field events and provide clear guidance to Operations, Maintenance, Deployment, and Engineering.
• Analyze mission logs, RF telemetry, packet statistics, navigation data, hardware health, maintenance history, environmental conditions, and site configuration.
• Build structured hypothesis trees that distinguish among RF, electrical, mechanical, firmware, networking, configuration, and navigation causes.
• Diagnose link-margin degradation, interference, coexistence, multipath, polarization mismatch, antenna blockage, detuning, packet loss, latency, and intermittent connectivity.
• Determine whether observed RF symptoms originate from antennas, cables, connectors, harnesses, grounding, shielding, power integrity, thermal conditions, mechanical integration, firmware, or network behavior.
• Work across Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, RF, Embedded Firmware, Networking, Navigation, Autonomy, Reliability, Manufacturing, and Operations.
• Partner with navigation and localization teams to understand how RF, GNSS, RTK, timing, telemetry, and site geometry affect system behavior.
• Reproduce field failures in the lab or at representative sites using controlled experiments and fault injection.
• Perform field surveys and test campaigns using spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, oscilloscopes, power meters, network diagnostics, packet captures, and other appropriate instrumentation.
• Develop link budgets, measurement plans, acceptance criteria, and test methods that connect analytical expectations to field performance.
• Inspect and troubleshoot antennas, radios, RF cables, connectors, PCBAs, harnesses, enclosures, radomes, grounds, shields, and mechanical mounting interfaces.
• Assess the effects of structural materials, tolerances, assembly variation, contamination, water ingress, corrosion, vibration, wear, and field damage on RF performance.
• Create rapid containment plans that safely restore operation while permanent corrective actions are developed.
• Drive permanent fixes through antenna or hardware changes, firmware behavior, configuration updates, manufacturing controls, maintenance procedures, detection algorithms, or operational changes.
• Verify corrective actions with controlled testing and fleet data, then monitor recurrence to confirm the issue is closed.
• Develop Python, SQL, or equivalent tools to analyze fleet-scale telemetry, identify population trends, and separate isolated failures from systemic problems.
• Build automated diagnostics, alerts, dashboards, and health metrics that detect degradation before it produces operational failures.
• Improve log content, telemetry, fault codes, and remote-debug capabilities so future investigations can be completed faster and with stronger evidence.
• Establish failure taxonomies and standardized investigation methods for RF and connectivity issues.
• Convert field learning into requirements for next-generation hardware, firmware, navigation, manufacturing, and service tooling.
• Create technical investigation reports that clearly document evidence, hypotheses, root cause, containment, corrective action, and verification.
• Mentor engineers and field teams in RF troubleshooting, data analysis, instrumentation, and structured root-cause methods.
• At the Staff level, lead cross-platform investigations, identify common architectural weaknesses, and define company-wide RF field-performance strategy.

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience resolving complex, intermittent field failures in autonomous systems, aerospace, robotics, automotive, telecommunications, industrial systems, or another high-reliability field.
• Deep expertise in RF systems, wireless communications, antennas, propagation, interference, link budgets, and RF measurement.
• Strong systems judgment across mechanical hardware, electronics, embedded firmware, networking, telemetry, and navigation.
• Ability to determine when an apparent RF failure is actually caused by power, timing, software, configuration, mechanical integration, or environmental conditions.
• Experience working with radios, antennas, RF cables, connectors, PCBAs, embedded systems, and mechanically integrated RF assemblies.
• Hands‑on proficiency with RF and electrical diagnostic equipment such as spectrum analyzers, VNAs, oscilloscopes, power meters, multimeters, and packet‑analysis tools.
• Experience analyzing large volumes of field logs and telemetry using Python, SQL, MATLAB, or equivalent tools.
• Track record of developing automated diagnostics or monitoring that improved fleet reliability or reduced investigation time.
• Experience with structured root‑cause methods such as fault‑tree analysis, 5‑Whys, DFMEA, or similar approaches.
• Demonstrated ability to drive corrective actions across design, firmware, manufacturing, maintenance, and operational teams.
• Experience planning and executing field tests in realistic environments where geometry, interference, weather, and operational constraints matter.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to provide concise direction during escalations and rigorous documentation afterward.
• Ability to operate with incomplete evidence, prioritize the highest‑value experiments, and update conclusions as new data become available.
• Location and logistics: this is an in‑person role based in South San Francisco and requires domestic and international travel to operational, deployment, supplier, and test locations.
• Operating intensity: periodic off‑hours support may be required during critical field escalations, investigations, or test campaigns.
• Traits: technical breadth, deep curiosity, calm troubleshooting, intellectual honesty, urgency, and persistence until the failure is understood and permanently addressed.

Nice to Have

• Experience with GNSS, RTK, cellular, Wi‑Fi, ISM‑band radios, mesh networks, or command‑and‑control links.
• Experience with navigation, localization, docking, autonomous‑vehicle, or robotics data.
• Experience with EMI/EMC troubleshooting, shielding, grounding, signal integrity, and power integrity.
• Familiarity with embedded C/C++, firmware debugging, network protocols, or over‑the‑air configuration.
• Experience with environmental, vibration, thermal, ingress, or accelerated‑life testing.
• Experience supporting globally distributed operations and remote technical teams.

What Success Looks Like

• High‑impact RF field issues are contained quickly, root‑caused rigorously, and permanently resolved.
• Mean time to detect, diagnose, and correct connectivity failures decreases measurably.
• Repeated failure modes decline because corrective actions address system causes rather than symptoms.
• Fleet observability identifies degraded RF performance before it becomes an operational failure.
• Hardware, firmware, navigation, manufacturing, and maintenance teams receive actionable field evidence that improves their designs and processes.
• Cross‑platform RF risks are identified early and addressed through shared requirements, tools, test methods, and architecture improvements.
• Operations teams trust the technical guidance they receive during escalations and can execute containment or recovery actions safely.

Why Join Zipline’s RF Team?

Zipline presents an antenna environment unlike a conventional consumer or telecommunications product. Our systems operate in three‑dimensional space, travel through changing propagation and interference environments, and must maintain reliable wireless connectivity while meeting strict size, weight, power, aerodynamic, safety, and regulatory constraints.

You will have the opportunity to move between electromagnetic theory, hands‑on hardware development, full‑system testing, manufacturing, and real‑world operations. The antenna systems you develop will directly enable autonomous logistics at global scale and help deliver products that matter to people when and where they need them.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - $200,000. 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.