Mechanical Engineering Manager - Ground Systems

About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers.

The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Through our technology that includes robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About You and The Role

The Ground Systems team at Zipline is in charge of all the infrastructures on the ground supporting our autonomous delivery drones with package loading, docking, battery charging, thermal management, ground communication and preflight checks. This role is central to enable our next generation of drone logistics, solving complex challenges in partner integration for package loading and charging infrastructure for autonomous drone operations.

Zipline is hiring a Mechanical Engineering Manager that is excited to execute clean sheet innovative designs for our next generation of ground system infrastructure for our Platform 2 system while supporting the scaling of our current operations. Platform 2 represents a groundbreaking innovation for Zipline as we scale the deployment and operation of our systems across urban metros to revolutionize the way life-saving products are delivered and ramp to 100s of millions of deliveries per year. 

As the lead of this team, you will be responsible for leading a multidisciplinary team of mechanical engineers with broad cross-functional engagement to develop and deliver the ground infrastructure for partner site integration across healthcare, retail and restaurant applications and global metros. This effort will enable Zipline’s impact to expand from 100’s of thousand deliveries/year to 100’s of millions in a wide variety of environmental conditions around the world. This person will be responsible for the design of Platform 2 ground systems infrastructure and equipment including packaging loading integration systems at our partners. This will include leading the team through the scaling of Platform 2 operations including operational triage, root causing and strategic mitigation. This leader will also drive the definition of, and shepherd in the next generation of package loading system design to unlock scaling deployments and seamless partner integration to ramp customer deliveries. They will act as a player-coach who is as comfortable providing strategic vision as they are being in the weeds of the team's designs and technical mentorship. 

Zipline is integrated into national health care systems and we are responsible for rapid delivery of life saving products. We engineer our systems to be efficient, reliable, and easy to maintain. The ideal candidate will have an outstanding technical background, delights in driving product definition with a customer-centric attitude, and enjoys leading and growing engineers as they continue to revolutionize the supply chain and logistic industry. The success of this team will define our partner experience and is vital to the success of Zipline overall.

What You'll Do

• Develop robust and reliable integrated electromechanical assemblies and structures that can be built at high volume 
• Work with Industrial Design, Go To Market and Deployment teams to deliver seamless integrated and easy to deploy products with delightful user experience
• Drive system level datuming/tolerancing strategy to achieve excellent manufacturability/serviceability
• Design customer centric products that meet reliability and lifetime requirements, demonstrated through component and system testing
• Drive architecture and tradeoffs in system design to optimize for full cost of ownership

To achieve this you will:

• Leverage your technical leadership experience in relevant fields to establish a team culture that biases towards action and tests ideas to achieve radically simple designs.
• Build strong cross functional relationships, navigate competing constraints to drive product architecture and roadmapping with customer-centric design 
• Motivate your team with a clear vision and create ambitious plans for your team’s work while holding a high bar for technical quality
• Build your team by hiring world class engineers

What You'll Bring

• Past success leading engineering teams to rapidly develop first of its kind hardware and deploy into the field with the level of rigor that a high volume or safety critical application requires.
• Technical depth in electro-mechanical and mechanism design. You have made impactful and direct contributions at the architectural level in your career.
• Experience with design for electronics packaging/harnessing, electric motors & actuators, mechanisms
  • Sheet metal and plastic design
• Structural design experience including hand calcs and FEA
• Enthusiasm for building a team - finding and convincing top talent to join you in your work.
• Past success managing and developing an excellent team of engineers.
• Past success bringing products through the full product development life cycle using high volume manufacturing practices.

What Else You Need to Know