Lead Production Equipment & Tooling Design Engineer

Zipline is the world’s largest autonomous delivery system, built to provide fast, reliable access to medicine, food, and other essential goods. We design, build, and operate high-performance logistics systems that serve customers across healthcare, retail, and government on four continents.
Our Manufacturing Engineering team builds the production systems that turn complex designs into reliable, scalable hardware. We are looking for engineers who like solving practical problems, moving quickly, and building equipment that works in the real world.

We are looking for a Lead Production Equipment & Tooling Design Engineer to design the fixtures, workstations, assembly tooling, and production equipment used to build Zipline products at scale.
This role is focused on hardware for the factory floor, with a mix of technical ownership and people leadership. You will lead a small group of equipment and tooling design engineers while remaining deeply hands-on in the work. This role is expected to be approximately 75% individual contributor and 25% leadership, with responsibility for both delivering critical tooling and equipment projects yourself and helping guide the team’s priorities, quality, and execution.
You will work closely with Manufacturing Engineering, Design Engineering, Quality, and Technicians to create tools and equipment that make assembly safer, faster, more repeatable, and easier to maintain. Typical projects may include alignment fixtures, press and torque tooling, ergonomic workstations, poka-yoke devices, handling tools, and end-of-line test equipment for electro-mechanical assemblies.

You will own projects from concept through production release: defining requirements, building CAD, releasing drawings, supporting fabrication, debugging equipment on the line, and improving designs after launch. You will also help develop the team by reviewing designs, mentoring engineers, and driving strong engineering standards across tooling and production equipment development.

• 5+ years of experience designing manufacturing equipment, tooling, or fixtures in a production environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.
• Strong mechanical design skills, including GD&T, tolerance stack-up, mechanism design, and material/process selection.
• Proficiency in 3D CAD; Siemens NX preferred.
• Experience designing and releasing custom tooling for repeatable assembly of electro-mechanical products.
• Hands-on experience supporting fabrication, build, debug, and commissioning of production equipment.
• Familiarity with common factory hardware such as pneumatics, sensors, actuators, linear motion, and machine guarding.
• Understanding of DFM/DFA, ergonomics, poka-yoke, and operator-centered tooling design.
• Experience working cross-functionally with design, quality, technicians, and vendors in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong judgment, ownership, and willingness to spend time on the manufacturing floor solving problems.

The starting cash range for this role is Salary range: $150,000 - $180,000.00. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation. 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; 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!

If you’d like to learn more about Zipline and our teams, feel free to check out our Instagram, one of our Reddit AMA’s, or our website!