Hiring: Head of Flight Test Engineering Company: Zipline Location: South San Francisco, CA Job Posted Time: 2026-09-03 10:33:45 Employment Type: On-site Target Skills & Keywords : Data Pipeline, Embedded Systems About the job Experience: •5+ years designing, developing, validating, or testing complex autonomous, robotic, aerospace, aviation, or safety-critical systems; UAS experience is strongly preferred. Required Skills: •Zipline builds autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods through real-world logistics networks. Flight test provides the evidence that aircraft, software, delivery operations, docking and charging systems, and fleet capabilities are ready for commercial operations. •As Head of Flight Test Engineering, you will lead the team that converts complex engineering questions into safe, representative release evidence. You will own flight test strategy and campaigns while strengthening the automation, data, and operating practices that help Zipline learn quickly and make rigorous release decisions. •Lead, grow, and develop the Flight Test Engineering team. •Own the validation strategy for new aircraft capabilities, software releases, hardware changes, delivery operations, docking and charging systems, fleet behavior, and operational concepts. •Define campaign objectives, success criteria, risk posture, and go/no-go frameworks with Software, Electrical, Mechanical, Controls, Autonomy, Cloud, Systems, Product, and Regulatory teams. •Build and oversee flight test campaigns that produce clear release-readiness evidence and expand representative regression coverage across the end-to-end logistics system. •Improve automated test infrastructure, data pipelines, anomaly detection, reporting, and correctness metrics to increase repeatability, test velocity, test capacity, and decision quality. •Choose the appropriate validation modality—flight, simulation, software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, or ground testing—to focus flight testing on the highest-value learning. Qualifications: •Systems-level judgment across software, embedded, electrical, mechanical, controls, operations, and regulatory constraints. •Demonstrated capacity to lead cross-functional technical programs and communicate safety, risk, and engineering tradeoffs to engineers, operators, executives, and regulatory partners. •Comfort working in field environments with operational teams and willingness to travel domestically and internationally for flight testing, team leadership, and test-site support. •What Else You Need To Know Compensation: •$200,000 - $260,000 / year Interested candidates, please apply directly through the job posting on company's career page or try via AI auto apply on this platform. Don't miss this opportunity to join a forward-thinking team!