About Zipline

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.

About You & the Role

Zipline’s Manufacturing Engineering team delivers the production systems that turn autonomous delivery aircraft and their subsystems into reliable, repeatable products at scale. As an Automation Engineer, Production Equipment based at Coop, Zipline’s South San Francisco manufacturing site, you will select, integrate, deploy, and sustain production automation for aircraft assembly, battery integration, dock components, and flight-critical subsystems. You will translate cycle-time, labor, quality, uptime, and maintainability needs into practical equipment requirements, coordinate internal and vendor builds, and bring systems into stable production through acceptance, commissioning, operator training, and continuous improvement.

This is a hands-on individual-contributor role, with direct ownership of equipment design, build, commissioning, and improvement on the factory floor. Your work determines throughput, first-pass yield, assembly cycle time, and maintenance uptime for production lines that supply field operations and live delivery fleets; mistakes affect fleet readiness and safety-critical performance.

This role is site‑based at the specified South San Francisco manufacturing facility; expect regular on‑site presence during standard manufacturing shifts, availability for occasional off‑hours commissioning, and up to 15% travel to vendor or field sites.

What You’ll Do

Evaluate automation opportunities against manual work content, cycle time, first-pass yield, uptime, and maintainability, and translate the chosen approach into equipment requirements.
Integrate automation into existing assembly workflows, verify vendor-built systems against acceptance criteria, and train operators during production deployment and scale-up.
Own the integration and deployment of production automation from requirements through vendor fabrication, build, commissioning, and production release; work with mechanical and controls partners on CAD (Siemens NX), detailed drawings, and equipment interfaces.
Deliver measurable improvements: increase tooling availability above 95%, reduce manual assembly cycle time by 20–40% per station, and improve first-pass yield (FPY) on targeted assemblies by at least 10% within the first 6–12 months of deployment.
Integrate and install automation incorporating alignment fixtures, press and torque tooling, ergonomic operator stations, poka‑yoke devices, handling/transport fixtures, and automated end-of-line test rigs tied to build and test specs for aircraft, battery packs, and docks.