Senior Systems Engineer – Autonomous Safety & Reliability

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

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to design, test, and deploy complex electromechanical systems for safety‑critical applications. You will own requirements, interfaces, and verification across cross‑disciplinary teams, helping scale operations and ensure reliability in real‑world field deployments.

You’ll lead trade studies, define system architectures, and collaborate with design, certification, and operations teams to demonstrate flight worthiness and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or master's degree in a relevant engineering field.
• Experience designing safety‑critical electromechanical systems.
• Proven ability to solve complex multidisciplinary problems on schedule.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted technical expert for deploying high‑reliability autonomous systems in safety‑critical environments.
• Own system and subsystem requirements, decomposition, and traceability.
• Define interfaces and drive cross‑disciplinary discussions to align on budgets.
• Develop trade studies to optimize performance, safety, and cost for architecture decisions.
• Evaluate hardware and software release standards and test requirements.
• Partner with design, other systems engineers and certification teams to prove flight worthiness to regulators.

Skills

Aerospace Engineering

Systems Engineering

Safety critical systems

Problem solving

Modeling tools

Statistical analysis

Flight dynamics

Energy budgets

Fault tolerant systems

Education

Aerospace or Systems Engineering degree

Job description

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to design, test, and deploy complex electromechanical systems for safety‑critical applications. You will own requirements, interfaces, and verification across cross‑disciplinary teams, helping scale operations and ensure reliability in real‑world field deployments.

You’ll lead trade studies, define system architectures, and collaborate with design, certification, and operations teams to demonstrate flight worthiness and