Zipline International Inc.
Mechanical Engineering Manager
South San Francisco, California, USA
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
The bottom of this range ($160,000) is below the Level I prevailing wage of $170,477. An H-1B cannot be filed below the prevailing wage, so an offer at the floor of this band could not be sponsored as posted.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $203,507 would place this position at wage Level II. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Architectural and Engineering Managers" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Architectural and Engineering Managers (11-9041) · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
Employer immigration record
from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Files H-1B transfers
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
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About the role
- About Zipline Zipline is the world's largest and most experienced drone delivery service.
- 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.
- The drone is only 15% of what we've built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.
Responsibilities
- Build and develop an exceptional mechanical engineering team. Set clear ownership and a high bar, give timely, direct feedback, and create an environment where strong engineers can do ambitious work and grow.
- Own mechanical engineering outcomes across the Long Range Platform. Set strategy, priorities, and the multi-generation roadmap, balancing customer value, platform capability, technical risk, investment, staffing, and execution.
- Guide mechanical architecture and design for aircraft structures, mechanisms, powertrain, batteries, avionics packaging, and ground systems.
- Build a deep understanding of customer and operator needs through direct engagement, field observation, and operational feedback. Translate those needs into product requirements, mechanical interfaces, design choices, and validation plans.
- Drive systems engineering across mechanical and platform interfaces: translate customer and operating needs into system-level requirements, lead safety and reliability analyses, and ensure integration, verification, and test plans demonstrate safe performance in real-world conditions.
- Lead system-level tradeoffs across safety, weight, performance, reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, cost, and schedule. Surface decisions early and keep the team moving through uncertainty.
- Hold a consistent bar for designs validated against real operating conditions, including vibration, thermal exposure, fatigue, wear, handling, and maintenance.
- Work with suppliers and manufacturing partners to improve quality, cost, manufacturability, and production readiness.
- Take on difficult design, test, production, and field problems. Lead root-cause investigation, drive corrective action, and verify the resolution.
- Build and develop an exceptional mechanical engineering team.
Requirements
- Experience with prototyping, test planning, validation, and using results to guide design decisions.
- Experience designing for manufacturing, assembly, inspection, reliability, and serviceability.
- A track record of taking ownership across team boundaries, finding practical paths through difficult technical problems, and bringing them to resolution.
Nice to have
- Experience applying systems engineering, safety, or verification practices to complex real-world products, such as robotics, aerospace, automotive, or industrial automation.
- Experience with aircraft structures, composite materials, electric powertrains, or battery systems.
- Experience supporting systems in field environments with high reliability and maintenance requirements.
- Experience with Siemens NX.
- What Else You Need To Know
- The starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - $235,000.
- Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role.
- sales incentives
Compensation
- The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.
Benefits
- With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.
Company info
- We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere.
- We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.
- Stay technically engaged through design reviews, analysis, prototyping, and testing. Bring the depth to make sound decisions, challenge assumptions, and help the team resolve its hardest problems.
- Partner with Product, Electrical, Software, Systems, Integration, Test, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Operations to deliver hardware that works as part of the full system and meets customer needs in real operating conditions.
This listing is sourced directly from Zipline International Inc.'s careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.