Senior/Staff Electrical Engineer, Dropbox

Job Description

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 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 Senior or Staff Electrical Engineer on Dropbox, you will own critical electrical systems from architecture and component selection through detailed design, validation, production ramp, and fleet operation. Your scope will include power distribution, motor and actuator interfaces, sensing, PCBAs, wiring harnesses, connectors, grounding, protection, communications, and system diagnostics.

Dropbox operates unattended in demanding field environments and around untrained users. Its electrical systems must tolerate weather, installation variation, power disturbances, mechanical motion, contamination, service activity, and repeated daily operation while remaining safe and easy to diagnose.

You will work closely with Mechanical Engineering, Firmware, Systems, Safety, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Deployment, and Operations. This is a hands-on individual-contributor role with responsibility for both detailed electrical design and system-level product outcomes.

At the Staff level, you will additionally set the electrical architecture and technical direction across Dropbox generations, establish reusable design standards, and lead resolution of the program's most complex cross-functional problems.

What You'll Do

• Own critical Dropbox electrical systems from requirements and architecture through production release and field deployment.
• Develop electrical architecture for power distribution, control electronics, sensors, actuators, user interfaces, communications, and service diagnostics.
• Translate product behavior, safety analyses, environmental conditions, mechanical interfaces, and field workflows into electrical requirements.
• Define electrical success metrics such as power consumption, sensing coverage, fault-detection performance, environmental margin, production yield, and field reliability.
• Select and integrate sensors, motors, actuators, motor drivers, power supplies, converters, protection devices, connectors, harnesses, and communications interfaces.
• Design or guide the development of PCBAs, schematics, layouts, cables, wiring harnesses, interconnects, and electrical assembly documentation.
• Own power budgets, grounding and shielding strategy, connector architecture, current-carrying margins, thermal derating, and protection coordination.
• Design for electrical faults including overcurrent, short circuit, reverse polarity, overvoltage, undervoltage, brownouts, electrostatic discharge, connection errors, and loss of communication.
• Partner with Safety and Systems engineers to ensure electrical hazards are controlled through architecture, isolation, protection, sensing, and fault response.
• Work closely with Mechanical Engineering on electronics packaging, cable routing, connector access, environmental sealing, thermal management, strain relief, and serviceability.
• Partner with Firmware engineers to define sensor behavior, actuator interfaces, motor control, state transitions, interlocks, fault detection, telemetry, and recovery.
• Ensure electrical interfaces and configuration are unambiguous across product variants, site installations, and manufacturing builds.
• Perform circuit analysis, power analysis, signal-integrity assessment, tolerance analysis, derating, and worst-case analysis.
• Build prototypes, instrument systems, perform bench testing, and use data to retire technical risk.
• Develop validation plans covering functional performance, power quality, electrical safety, environmental exposure, ingress, thermal cycling, vibration, ESD, EMI/EMC, cable flexing, connector life, and fault injection.
• Lead design reviews, DFMEAs, hazard reviews, and electrical readiness reviews.
• Produce complete schematics, drawings, specifications, interface-control documents, BOMs, test requirements, and release documentation.
• Work directly with suppliers to qualify components, PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, power systems, and manufacturing processes.
• Partner with NPI, Manufacturing, and Quality to develop scalable assembly, inspection, programming, calibration, and end-of-line test processes.
• Support prototype builds, engineering validation, design validation, production validation, and manufacturing ramp.
• Lead investigations of test, production, and field failures using telemetry, logs, electrical measurements, physical inspection, and structured root-cause methods.
• Drive issues from containment through corrective action and verify that fixes measurably reduce recurrence.
• Use fleet data and service records to improve electrical reliability, fault detection, diagnostics, and maintenance procedures.
• Mentor engineers and establish electrical design, documentation, review, and release best practices.
• At the Staff level, identify systemic technical risks, drive cross-generational architecture decisions, and align electrical, mechanical, firmware, test, and manufacturing strategies.

What You'll Bring

• Proven end-to-end ownership of complex electrical or electromechanical products through architecture, validation, production ramp, and field deployment.
• Strong electrical engineering fundamentals across analog, digital, power, sensors, motor interfaces, embedded systems, and communications.
• Experience designing electronics for systems containing motors, actuators, sensors, PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, and embedded controls.
• Demonstrated ability to develop robust power-distribution, grounding, shielding, protection, and interconnect architectures.
• Experience with schematic capture, PCB design reviews, component selection, tolerance analysis, and worst-case circuit analysis.
• Hands-on proficiency with oscilloscopes, multimeters, power analyzers, electronic loads, logic analyzers, current probes, and data-acquisition equipment.
• Experience debugging intermittent problems involving power, signal integrity, connectors, sensors, communications, or firmware interaction.
• Experience designing for outdoor, industrial, automotive, aerospace, robotics, appliance, or similarly demanding environments.
• Knowledge of environmental protection, thermal derating, ESD, EMI/EMC, ingress, corrosion, vibration, and connector reliability.
• Experience defining verification plans, fault-injection tests, and production acceptance criteria.
• Track record working directly with PCB, harness, component, and contract-manufacturing suppliers.
• Experience implementing DFM, DFT, end-of-line testing, calibration, and manufacturing controls.
• Ability to analyze telemetry or test data using Python, SQL, MATLAB, or equivalent tools.
• Strong systems judgment and the ability to recognize when an electrical symptom originates in mechanical hardware, firmware, configuration, or field conditions.
• Clear written, verbal, and visual communication, including concise documentation of architecture decisions, assumptions, interfaces, and risks.
• Location and logistics: this role is in person in South San Francisco and includes some travel to suppliers, manufacturers, test locations, and deployment sites as needed.
• Operating intensity: periodic off-hours support may be required during critical builds, test campaigns, production ramps, and field escalations.
• Traits: strong technical judgment, hands-on curiosity, disciplined documentation, comfort with ambiguity, and persistence until difficult failures are understood.

Nice to Have

• Experience with motor-control electronics, position sensing, safety interlocks, or automated mechanisms.
• Experience with batteries, solar power, or distributed low-voltage systems.
• Experience with functional-safety principles or electronics operating around untrained users.
• Experience developing remote diagnostics, fleet-health monitoring, or automated failure-detection tools.
• Firmware experience in C/C++ or experience debugging embedded systems at the hardware-software boundary.
• Experience with high-volume electromechanical products.

What success looks like

• Dropbox electrical systems meet safety, reliability, power, environmental, and production requirements.
• Electrical releases reach production with strong yield and without recurring integration issues.
• Sensors, actuators, interlocks, and fault responses behave predictably across supported product configurations.
• Field electrical failures are detected quickly, diagnosed from useful telemetry, and permanently corrected.
• Manufacturing and Deployment teams can build, install, commission, and service Dropbox without repeated engineering intervention.
• Electrical architecture supports future Dropbox capabilities without unnecessary redesign or product variants.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $145,000 – $225,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; overtime pay; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Zipline 's Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.