Senior System Test & Validation Engineer — Rapid Fault-Finding

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a System Test leader to drive fast, rigorous hardware validation across environmental and durability campaigns. You will own the system-test roadmap, lead engineers and technicians, and develop health monitoring tools to catch failures quickly.

Strong electromechanical skills and proficiency in Python, Rust, and C/C++ are essential, with experience in safety-critical aerospace-like systems.

Qualifications

• Lead test engineers and technicians on complex hardware programs.
• Plan and run environmental, durability, and reliability campaigns that guide engineering decisions.
• Apply reliability techniques (MTBF, Weibull, DFMEAs) to hardware programs.

Responsibilities

• Develop ground-based replication of in-flight environments (dust, icing, vibration).
• Own vehicle actuation within system test and DFMEA.
• Translate mission profiles into qualification and life-test plans.
• Create health monitoring and anomaly detection software (Python, Rust).
• Drive rapid failure finding within system test campaigns.
• Build data pipelines and automation for flight software validators.
• Enable Test Mode features in flight code.
• Integrate off-board sensors for continuous health monitoring.
• Characterize test assets and correlate tests to flight conditions.
• Steer test strategy: what to test at system vs component vs flight level.

Skills

Leadership

Electromechanical

Troubleshooting

Problem solving

Communication

Tools

Python

Rust

C/C++

Embedded controls

Job description

Zipline is seeking a System Test leader to drive fast, rigorous hardware validation across environmental and durability campaigns. You will own the system-test roadmap, lead engineers and technicians, and develop health monitoring tools to catch failures quickly.

Strong electromechanical skills and proficiency in Python, Rust, and C/C++ are essential, with experience in safety-critical aerospace-like systems.