Senior Flight Test Engineer at Zipline in South San Francisco, CA

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 is looking for a Senior Flight Test Engineer to lead comprehensive flight test campaigns and integrate automated testing infrastructure into our flight test program. Your work will help enable Zipline to continuously test, learn, and deploy improvements to our global delivery service.

In this role, you will develop a deep understanding of Zipline’s end-to-end logistics system and work closely with cross-functional partners to generate rapid insights into changes across hardware, software, and operations. Your work will serve as the final line of defense before software and hardware are deployed globally to perform critical real-world deliveries.

You’ll own system-level flight test campaigns from planning through execution and analysis. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys translating complex engineering questions into effective test programs and using data and automation to accelerate learning.

Do you enjoy designing system-level test campaigns and owning the outcome end-to-end? Are you collaborative and motivated to integrate the needs of multiple engineering teams into a unified test strategy? Are you passionate about bringing automation, tooling, and data analytics into flight testing to increase speed and insight? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

What You'll Do

• Develop and execute flight test campaigns to validate aircraft performance, delivery operations, docking systems, and fleet orchestration.
• Ensure flight testing is used for the highest-value learning opportunities, and recommend alternative test approaches when more efficient methods exist.
• Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and software teams to define system-level flight test objectives and success criteria.
• Assess hardware and software readiness for testing and make sound judgments on risk posture and flight readiness.
• Identify and remove technical and programmatic roadblocks that slow down flight testing.
• Own or coordinate key aspects of flight operations, including preflight preparation, flight execution, and incident reporting.
• Analyze flight test data to identify anomalies, trends, and opportunities for rapid iteration.
• Track test progress and introduce new tools, processes, and workflows that enable safe and efficient testing.
• Develop and integrate software tooling and automated test infrastructure to improve test precision, insight, capacity, and velocity.

What You'll Bring

• 3+ years designing, developing or validating autonomous, robotic, systems (UAS experience preferred).
• Experience maintaining and enforcing safety in a fast-paced and rapidly evolving environment.
• Strong experience analyzing and interpreting test data.
• Experience bringing up and debugging hardware and software systems for automated platforms.
• A systems-level mindset, with the ability to balance risks and priorities across structures, aerodynamics, embedded systems, and software teams.
• Strong judgment on when to move quickly with pragmatic solutions and when to invest in long-term infrastructure or tooling.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally for flight testing (approximately 2–6 weeks per year).
• Comfort working outdoors and supporting flight test activities in varying weather conditions.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $130,000 - $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; overtime pay; 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, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!