Hardware Test & Prototype Technician, Dropbox

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.

Zipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. Dropbox is our customer‑facing package‑loading product that integrates mechatronics, sensors, electronics, access control, user interaction, firmware, and environmental protection so untrained users can hand off packages to our droids.

As a Hardware Test & Prototype Technician, you will help turn Dropbox concepts into working hardware and generate the test evidence engineers use to improve the product. You will assemble prototypes, modify hardware, build test fixtures, instrument systems, execute tests, document failures, and keep test assets operating reliably.

You will work closely with Mechanical, Electrical, Firmware, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, and Deployment engineers. Some work will be well defined through drawings and test procedures; other work will require you to interpret an engineer’s intent, identify practical problems, and help determine the best way to build or test something.

This is a highly hands‑on role based in South San Francisco. You will also periodically support prototype installations and testing at Half Moon Bay, Sacramento, and other test or deployment locations. Field work may involve some travel, outdoor conditions, and troubleshooting hardware away from the normal lab environment.

• Assemble, integrate, rework, and maintain Dropbox prototypes and test articles.
• Build mechanical and electromechanical assemblies containing structures, mechanisms, motors, transmissions, sensors, PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, and seals.
• Interpret engineering drawings, CAD views, bills of materials, wiring diagrams, assembly instructions, and test procedures.
• Provide practical feedback when designs, drawings, tolerances, fastener access, cable routing, or assembly sequences are unclear or difficult to execute.
• Fabricate and modify prototype components, brackets, fixtures, guards, and test equipment using appropriate shop tools and processes.
• Perform mechanical assembly using torque tools, adhesives, thread‑locking compounds, bearings, belts, fasteners, seals, and alignment features.
• Build, route, terminate, and troubleshoot wiring harnesses and electromechanical connections.
• Instrument test articles using load cells, force and torque sensors, thermocouples, displacement sensors, cameras, current sensors, and data‑acquisition equipment.
• Build and maintain automated cycle testers, environmental setups, representative packages, abuse‑test fixtures, and other development equipment.
• Execute component, subsystem, and system‑level tests following approved procedures and safety requirements.
• Support functional, lifetime, environmental, ingress, wear, misuse, obstruction, package‑variation, and fault‑recovery testing.
• Monitor tests, identify abnormal behavior, stop testing when unsafe or invalid conditions occur, and escalate issues promptly.
• Record test configuration, asset serial numbers, firmware versions, environmental conditions, observations, failures, and results accurately.
• Capture photographs, videos, measurements, logs, and physical evidence needed for failure investigation.
• Assist engineers with teardown, inspection, dimensional measurement, and root‑cause investigations.
• Distinguish likely product failures from fixture, instrumentation, setup, software, or operator problems.
• Reproduce field failures in the lab and verify whether corrective actions prevent recurrence.
• Maintain test assets, tools, fixtures, instrumentation, spare parts, and work areas in a safe and organized condition.
• Track equipment…