Field Service Engineer - SMI; Structures, Mechanisms & Integration

About Zipline

Zipline’s mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. We believe that where you live should never dictate whether you live. We are at the forefront of a logistics revolution, using autonomous aircraft to deliver just-in-time, life-saving medical supplies at national scale in several countries and expanding around the world. Are you interested in building a system that 500 million people will depend on with their lives?

About the Role

Field Service Engineers at Zipline are the tip of the spear in identifying and eliminating failure modes across our global operations. You will be the technical authority for your subsystem (Avionics, Ground Systems, Powertrain, or SMI), working across hardware and software boundaries to drive improvements into design, manufacturing, and operational practices.

You’ll combine hands-on troubleshooting, deep systems knowledge, and cross-functional communication to debug and resolve failures. Whether it’s a GPS dropout, a motor burnout, a power spike, or a hinge crack, you’ll be responsible for finding it, understanding it, and working with engineering to fix it permanently.

This is a high-trust, high-autonomy role for engineers who want to own the health and performance of our hardware in the real world.

What You’ll Do

Core Responsibilities

• Own the implementation of design and processes improvements that address field reliability, reduce downtime, and support long-term economic goals
• Investigate field failures by combining data analysis, log review, and physical failure analysis
• Perform root cause analysis using first principles, 5-Whys, and fault tree methods
• Create and lead containment actions, corrective actions, and permanent design/process fixes
• Provide technical leadership during field escalations, with hands-on support as needed
• Build tooling and diagnostics to proactively monitor health of fleet systems
• Influence DFM, DFT, and maintainability for next-generation designs
• Act as the technical bridge between Ops, Engineering, and Manufacturing

Avionics

• Troubleshoot board-level failures in flight computers, camera modules, radios, GNSS, and networking components
• Work with electrical design and embedded firmware teams to validate root causes
• Use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and in-field diagnostics to debug flaky or intermittent issues
• Analyze log data and telemetry for system-wide signal integrity or timing failures
• Drive improvements in EMI resilience, connector reliability, thermal derating, and firmware watchdog handling

Ground Systems

• Analyze log data and telemetry for system-wide performance and availability metrics
• Develop software and dashboards to analyze large datasets including statistics and model vs. actual analysis:
  Python is a must.
• Root-cause missions that experience off nominal behaviours: hardware failures, intermittent communications, electromagnetic degradation, charging or thermal efficiency, thermal events
• Hands on debug, troubleshooting and root cause analysis of electromechanical hardware issues in the field and in the lab
• Champion the corrective-actions for Ground Systems hardware including design changes, process changes, and detection algorithms and in field containment

Powertrain

• Understand embedded motor control and interactions with higher-level software, proficiency in Python/MATLAB and C/C++ is a must.
• Root-cause flights that experience battery or motor hardware issues: hardware failures, intermittent communications, electromagnetic degradation, powertrain efficiency, thermal events, battery capacity, propeller thrust degradation.
• Develop software to analyze large datasets including statistics and model vs. actual analysis:
  Python/MATLAB is a must.
• Develop software for automated log review and notification of off-nominal hardware performance.
• Champion the corrective-actions for Powertrain hardware including design changes, process changes, and detection algorithms.

SMI

• Troubleshoot and root cause structures and mechanism performance issues in flight: structural hardware failures, mechanism wear, damage, & underperformance, and fatigue/life damage.
• Develop software and dashboards to track critical…