Lead Engineering Technician at Zipline in San Francisco, CA

Job description

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 and The Role Zipline's next-generation aircraft and supporting hardware must be built, integrated, validated, recovered, and improved while products, processes, and configurations are still evolving. Your team turns engineering intent into safe, traceable hardware that enables validation, production, remanufacturing, and reliable field operations. You will lead and work alongside Engineering Technicians on the build floor. Your role will be to own build readiness, daily execution priorities, technical blocker resolution, recovery quality, and technician capability so the team can deliver high-quality hardware consistently. What You'll Do Lead daily prototype and NPI builds, set priorities, coordinate technician capacity, equipment, materials, tooling, and workstations, and communicate progress, risks, and resource constraints. Maintain build readiness, configuration control, and traceability across parts, BOMs, drawings, work instructions, revisions, quantities, and production issues. Provide hands-on leadership in assembly, troubleshooting, rework, and repair. Coach technicians on safety, workmanship, and documentation, and use sound judgment to resolve workflow and resource challenges. Develop work instructions and standard workflows; support equipment bring-up and validate equipment and process readiness. Partner with Engineering on design-for-assembly feedback and engineering changes. Improve manufacturing quality, reliability, efficiency, cost, and cycle time. Support production transfers and scale-up, including training production teams. Hire, onboard, and develop technicians through coaching, cross-training, and career planning. Track performance, quality, and adherence to standard work; set KPIs and forecast staffing needs. Keep safety training current, document EHS incidents, address hazards, and support team-led safety improvements. Build a collaborative, accountable team focused on innovation and continuous improvement. What You'll Bring 5+ years in manufacturing, production, NPI, or prototype builds, including 2+ years leading or supervising technical personnel. Experience managing low-volume, high-variability builds with competing priorities and changing requirements. Strong hardware assembly, troubleshooting, and repair skills; able to use hand tools, assembly tooling, and manufacturing equipment. Ability to interpret mechanical drawings, electri