Senior Electrical Engineer - Long Range

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

You are a Senior Electrical Engineer (Long Range Platform) who will own end-to-end electrical subsystems for Zipline’s long‑range fixed‑wing delivery aircraft. This role sits on the long‑range drone program developing motor controllers, power distribution, battery management, safety electronics, and embedded communications that directly affect fleet reliability, flight safety, and delivery scale. You will work on hardware that flies in production today and will enable scaling from thousands to millions of deliveries; your designs must meet aggressive targets for robustness, manufacturability, and field serviceability in a logistics and field‑operations environment.

What You'll Do

• Own electrical subsystem delivery from requirements and architecture through schematic, PCB layout, prototype bring‑up, validation, and production transfer for at least one of: motor drives (BLDC), BMS/power distribution, avionics, or safety circuits.
• Translate system performance targets (power levels, efficiency, thermal limits, EMI, MTBF goals) into board‑level requirements and trade studies; make owner‑level decisions that balance weight, power, cost, and reliability.
• Define and execute validation plans: functional, environmental, thermal, EMI/EMC, and life‑cycle tests; produce test artifacts and pass criteria used by certification/flight‑safety and manufacturing teams.
• Create and own production deliverables: DFM feedback, assembly/test procedures, EOL test design, and supplier technical direction to drive yield and unit cost targets.
• Rapidly diagnose and close field failures: lead root‑cause investigations on flight‑critical issues, develop mitigations, and ship robust revisions to fleet with documented verifications and rollback criteria.
• Work closely day‑to‑day with mechanical, firmware, systems, reliability, manufacturing, and operations engineers; be the electrical point‑person for cross‑functional design reviews and field deployments.
• Support occasional onsite work: lab bring‑up, HIL or flight tests at South San Francisco, and supplier/manufacturer visits as needed to validate production or resolve urgent field issues.
• Measure success by metrics you influence: reduction in field failure rate for owned subsystem, improvement in production test yield, meeting specified MTBF/thermal targets, and timely production transfers.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent experience; solid first‑principles foundation in power electronics and mixed‑signal board design.
• Minimum 4 years of hands‑on experience designing complex PCBAs through production: schematic capture, layout review, BOM selection, integration, and board‑level validation.
• Direct experience in at least one of: BLDC motor drive design, lithium‑ion battery systems/BMS, high‑current power distribution, or safety/fault‑isolation circuitry. Must demonstrate shipped hardware or production revisions in that domain.
• Proven ability to define and run validation programs (thermal, vibration, EMI/EMC, life cycling) and to interpret test data into design changes.
• Practical lab skills with oscilloscopes, DMMs, power analyzers, network analyzers, and the ability to debug high‑power and high‑speed signals on prototype boards.
• Clear technical communication skills: produce concise schematics, test plans, failure reports, and present findings to engineering and operations partners.
• Comfortable operating with high urgency and ambiguity: able to prioritize field‑facing fixes, make tradeoffs under production constraints, and own delivery of hardware under tight schedules.

• Location & logistics: regular onsite work at Zipline’s South San Francisco office is required; occasional travel to suppliers, manufacturers, and field sites will be expected.

• Work authorization: Zipline can sponsor visas; candidates do not need to already hold U.S. permanent resident status.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting salary for this position is $150,000 - $216,000. Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

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!