Mechanical Engineering Manager

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.

The Long Range Platform brings together aircraft, ground systems, software, manufacturing, and operations in one integrated product. We’re looking for a Mechanical Engineering Manager to set mechanical engineering strategy for the platform and lead the team responsible for mechanical design, from early architecture through production and field use. This leader will connect customer and operator needs with platform strategy, shaping the aircraft and ground systems that make delivery more useful, reliable, and scalable.

This is a strategic player-coach role. You’ll help define product direction and the multi-generation roadmap with Product, Systems, and platform leaders, turning customer problems, field performance, and operating constraints into clear priorities, requirements, and investment choices. You’ll develop engineers and stay close to the work: reviewing designs, working through difficult tradeoffs, and helping the team resolve issues in build, test, and operation. The work spans safety-critical aircraft hardware and ground systems that need to perform reliably in demanding environments and be practical to build, inspect, and maintain at scale.

• Build and develop an exceptional mechanical engineering team. Set clear ownership and a high bar, give timely, direct feedback, and create an environment where strong engineers can do ambitious work and grow.

• Own mechanical engineering outcomes across the Long Range Platform. Set strategy, priorities, and the multi-generation roadmap, balancing customer value, platform capability, technical risk, investment, staffing, and execution.

• Guide mechanical architecture and design for aircraft structures, mechanisms, powertrain, batteries, avionics packaging, and ground systems.

• Build a deep understanding of customer and operator needs through direct engagement, field observation, and operational feedback. Translate those needs into product requirements, mechanical interfaces, design choices, and validation plans.

• Drive systems engineering across mechanical and platform interfaces: translate customer and operating needs into system-level requirements, lead safety and reliability