Senior-Staff RF 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 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 which 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 Avionics team is a group of hardware, software, and test experts responsible for designing robust systems that control our life-saving drone delivery service in some of the toughest environments on Earth. Our team designs aircraft avionics that must excel in a wide range of harsh, real-world climates and electromagnetic interference (EMI) environments. The Avionics system is a vital part of the overall zipline aircraft system architecture, where we strive to achieve high performance and reliability while minimizing mass and cost.

You and our team will be responsible for delivering high performance communication and navigation systems that are tightly integrated into the aircraft and flight computer. These radio systems are at the core of a new unmanned aerial system that will enable Zipline’s impact to expand from 100,000 deliveries/year to 100 million across the globe. Zipline’s future success depends on the development of avionics systems that are low mass, low cost, high reliability, and produced at high volumes. Rigorous design engineering and validation is required, as well as ingenuity in approaches to packaging, integration, fault tolerance, and validation. We are looking for a test engineer with a strong foundation in RF fundamentals and prior experience with manufacturing test, design validation, system performance characterization, and certificaiton.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own the design validation and test planning efforts for our RF products; including both design validation and manufacturing test.
• Develop a deep understanding of components under test becoming a subject matter expert in the component’s behavior under a range of environmental, performance, and system conditions.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams and external vendors to deploy high quality test plans and test systems in a timely manner to support production timelines
• Drive end-to-end test campaigns from development through design validation, certification, and production (often working all facets simultaneously).
• Triage and root-cause field failures, using data analysis, test heritage, correlation to operating conditions, and one-off test campaigns.
• Support the certification testing to enable our aircraft to fly in the real world.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

• 5+ years of experience in RF engineering roles, with manufacturing test, system performance testing, certification, and design validation experience
• Bachelors and/or Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, with focus on RF Comms and Design
• Past test engineering experience in sensors and electronics for critical systems in fields such as automotive, aerospace, transportation, or medical devices.
• Test asset design validation for RF products in high-volume production environments.
• Experience with one or more of Wi-Fi, Cell, GNSS, ADS-B, UWB, Radar, or similar consumer electronics wireless protocols.
• Experience developing test plans, test requirements, test standards, and test criteria for hardware products and RF systems.
• Strong understanding of communication system fundamentals including linear systems, signal processing, and communication theory.
• Proficient in Python, Linux environments, and scripting languages such as Bash or Shell.
• Enthusiasm for collaborating in a fast paced, cross-functional environment.
• Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical challenges and solutions to fellow engineers and non-engineers alike.
• Must be eligible to work in the US.
• Must be able to work in person at Zipline’s South San Francisco office.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

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.

The starting cash range for this role is $145,000 - $205,000. 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.

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!