Hardware Test Automation Lead

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 Powertrain team is a multi-disciplinary hardware and software team responsible for designing the electric drivetrain at the heart of our life-saving drone delivery service, operating in some of the harshest environments on earth. 

As a Test Automation Lead at Zipline you will have the unique opportunity to lead a team through developing, and deploying high quality software that will power our automated testers for all our next-generation systems. Through developing these tests your team will gain a deep understanding of our full avionics stack and the embedded code that lives in them, including flight computers, power distribution boards, battery management systems, and motor controllers. You will also interface with large mechatronics systems and need to develop complex scripts that automate many sensors and actuators with operator safety in mind. Your team will own these systems from early prototype design all the way to field root-cause, driving schedules, managing vendors and bridging cross-functional teams around a reliability focus. Most importantly, all of this work you will take on will be the last line of defense before our vehicles are shipped all over the world to perform vital deliveries. 

What You'll Do  

• Hire, lead, and mentor the software/hardware test engineering department responsible for powertrain performance and reliability testing, including building this function within the department and setting the bar for performance and reliability testing.
• Develop automated test infrastructure used in End-of-line (EOL) and reliability testing.
• Develop UIs and data visualization tools to improve the quality of insights provided to hardware test engineers
• Contribute functionality to Zipline's custom hardware test framework, including tools for deploying testers to remote production sites, visualization, data management, and part tracking.
• Work with hardware test engineers on the architecture of hardware test setups, including instrumentation selection, software architecture, and data processing pipelines.
• Develop software to improve hardware test coverage, touch time, and throughput.
• Champion the deployment of hardware testers to distributed production sites and sub-suppliers, interfacing directly with contract manufacturers, and working through IT, networking, and security for production test.
• Draw on electromechanical experiences to root cause test anomalies, including combinations of hardware and software failures.

 What You'll Bring 

• Expert-level Python development; this is the tool used daily in this role.
• Intermediate C/C++, familiarity with microcontrollers and embedded compute modules.
• Track record of deploying critical software in a production environment, including experience with Git and CI tools.
• Experience developing software that interfaces directly with hardware.
• Experience solving multidisciplinary problems with little supervision as an individual or member of an integrated team.
• Familiarity with electrical engineering concepts and ability to troubleshoot basic electrical engineering test setups.
• Ability and desire to manage timelines and a wide range of incoming development requests.

 What Else You Need to Know   

The starting cash range for this role is $170,000 - 210,000. 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; 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!