About You and The Role

The Avionics team is a multi-disciplinary hardware and software team responsible for designing robust avionics systems for our life-saving drone delivery service in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Zipline’s aircraft avionics must be successful in a wide range of challenging real-world climactic and EMI environments. Our team plays a vital role in system architecture - designing for performance and reliability, while minimizing mass and cost. A critical part of the team’s design responsibility is Zipline’s FAA-approved safety system to ensure the safety of employees, customers, and bystanders. Our sophisticated flight systems also require us to build custom solutions with high performance embedded computing, high speed communication buses interfacing to sensors, and tightly integrated radio systems.

As the Electrical Engineering Manager for the Avionics team, you and your team will be responsible for delivering integrated electronic systems spanning flight computers, communication systems, safety avionics, and harnessing. These components are at the core of a new unmanned aerial system that will enable Zipline’s impact to expand from 100,000 deliveries/year to 100 million across the globe. Zipline’s future success depends on the development of avionics systems that are low mass, low cost, high reliability, and produced at high volumes. Rigorous design engineering and validation is required, as well as ingenuity in approaches to packaging, integration, fault tolerance, and validation.

We are looking for a leader with a strong foundation in board level design and an excellent grasp of electronics development, processes, and tools, and the proven capacity to lead and grow a high-performing team.

What You'll Do

• Lead, mentor, and grow a small but mighty team of electrical design and test engineers
• Coordinate with cross discipline teams within Avionics and cross functional teams outside of Avionics
• Coordinate team resources, project scopes, and timelines to complete deliverables aligned with program needs
• Develop and execute roadmaps for generational improvements in avionics system architecture and compute capability
• Design flight computers and safety avionics PCBAs, including schematic capture, layout, and DFM
• Integrate flight computers into aircraft, including harnessing, thermals, EMI/ESD, and waterproofing in collaboration with mechanical and RF engineering peers
• Plan and execute electrical design validation in prototypes, engineering validation, manufacturing validation, and production ramp
• Design test systems for avionics hardware manufacturing test
• Ongoing engineering to successfully sustain the operation of existing avionics systems in our existing fleet of thousands of aircraft

What You'll Bring

• A degree in Electrical Engineering or Embedded Hardware Engineering; or equivalent practical experience
• Minimum 5 years of design experience including: circuit design, schematic capture, PCB layout, packaging, integration, cost reduction, sourcing, and transitioning a product to production
• Past success developing electronics for critical systems in fields such as automotive, aerospace, transportation, or medical devices
• Design experience with mixed-signal, high-speed digital, high performance embedded compute, and electromagnetic compatibility
• Proven talent in building and leveraging a team of engineers to achieve ambitious goals
• Experience in formally managing a team of junior and experienced engineers
• Enthusiasm for collaborating in a fast paced, cross-functional environment
• Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical challenges and solutions to fellow engineers and non-engineers alike
• Must be eligible to work in the US
• Must be able to work in person at Zipline’s South San Francisco Headquarters

What Else You Need to Know