Senior Mechanical Design Engineer - Dock

Senior Mechanical Design Engineer - Dock

SSF | Ground Systems | Full-Time

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.

About You and The Role

Are you interested in being at the forefront of developing new infrastructure hardware products, the first of its kind to deploy to cities and countries around the world? Do you want to move fast, ship hardware and help create a new modality for on-demand logistics? If you want to journey with us to integrate novel designs seamlessly into our customers’ infrastructure, read on! 

The Ground Systems team is responsible for all of the hardware on the ground that enables our Zips to take off, fly, land and prepare for their next mission. We are developing a ubiquitous infrastructure solution for drone-based logistics akin to what the solar industry has achieved with solar panels deployed worldwide. Our goal is to develop elegant integration solutions that are modular, cost effective, and adaptable to both new and existing building structures and sites worldwide for a variety of customers making drone deliveries. 

Our team designs take off and landing platforms that enable autonomous drone flight.  This includes a docking system with active latching and passive alignment, blind-mate ducting for HVAC heating and cooling during charge cycles, and custom designed power distribution.      

What You'll Do

As a Senior Mechanical Design Engineer, you will use your core technical competencies to develop innovative products for our ground systems equipment. You do not let “how it is normally done” artificially limit the potential solution space but leverage your experiences, knowledge, and first principles thinking towards problem solving to create an optimal product. Physical scale does not daunt you whether the mechanism fits within your hand or is 10 meters long, you will engineer systems that will only come together days before they are needed, so we’re counting on you to make sure they work the first time. You are comfortable solving complex problems with little direction and maximum autonomy. Hand calcs guide your thinking and designs and help you quickly bound a problem. You are biased to action and an efficient optimizer leaning on best practices and proven processes seemingly always getting things done in half the time. You are a technical mentor and resources to others on the team, able to share best practices and review work with junior members on the team.

We are looking for an experienced mechanical engineer to own the design of entire systems and subassemblies for next generation products that are unlike anything that exists today. This will include design of structural components, mechanisms, and electronics integration. As a member of our core design team, you will make important decisions about the product architecture and create designs that will enable practical scale on a short timeline that will meet high product reliability targets. You will quickly iterate and downselect based on data from your analysis and test results from your prototypes. Collaboration cross functionally will be key with electrical, software, civil, NPI and supply chain teams to bring your designs to production and into the field.

What You'll Bring

• Proven track record owning complex subassemblies or full systems over at least 3 product programs (concept, prototype, validation, production)
• Strong fundamentals: load estimation, structural hand calcs to guide part sizing, basic FEA and clean CAD designs. 
• Familiarity with mechanism design and the integration of electrical components into hardware products
• Practical knowledge of manufacturing methods such as welding, sheetmetal forming, extrusion, CNC machining, injection molding, etc
• Experience partnering with contract manufacturers to ramp up production of high volume lines
• Demonstrated CAD fluency for system level ownership - 3D/2D of 20-40 parts simultaneously
• Disciplined processes: Your parts are released, BOMs are maintained, SOPs created for builds, and timelines are up-to-date
• Excellent communication - written, verbal, and visual. You know how to tailor to your audience with the right level of technical depth to be as effective as possible, including using basic tools in place of full CAD when it makes sense
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering
• Ability to periodically (<10%) travel to visit customers and suppliers
• Must be eligible to work in the US and willing to relocate to Bay Area CA region

Nice to Have

• NX is your primary CAD tool
• Knowledge in applying appropriate FOS and margin to human safety critical application (design margin tables, structural joint calculations)

 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, 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! 

If you’d like to learn more about Zipline and our teams, check out this video!