Prototype Technician - New Products

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.

Zipline’s New Products team invents our next generation of systems. We’re looking for exceptional prototypers and makers who can help turn new ideas into real hardware and enable entirely new aircraft capabilities. We work across aircraft, mechanisms, electrical systems, ground equipment, and experimental test hardware.

Your role is to create hardware that has never existed before. You are equally comfortable building a rough mockup from cardboard and 3D prints, fabricating a flight-quality prototype, debugging a mechanism, repairing a composite structure, or troubleshooting a wire harness. Designs evolve quickly, and the fastest path to learning is often to build something, test it, understand what failed, and build the next version.

As a Prototype Technician, you will work closely with engineers and designers to translate concepts into physical prototypes. You will have significant autonomy in deciding how to build things, what tools and processes to use, and how to improve designs as you uncover problems.

• Build first-of-their-kind prototypes for aircraft, mechanisms, electrical systems, ground equipment, and experimental hardware.

• Translate sketches, CAD, and early engineering concepts into functional hardware using appropriate materials and processes.

• Create mockups and flight-quality assemblies, selecting the level of fidelity needed to answer each design question.

• Fabricate mechanical parts and composite structures using machining, welding, sheet metal, hand tools, additive manufacturing, and prototype tooling.

• Assemble, troubleshoot, modify, and repair complex electromechanical systems, including harnesses, sensors, actuators, motors, and connectors.

• Instrument prototypes with sensors, wiring, DAQ systems, and measurement equipment; support testing, diagnose failures, and implement improvements in subsequent builds.

• Document builds, configurations, repairs, failures, and lessons learned; provide feedback on