Hiring: Senior CAE Engineer - Crash Safety and Powertrain Analysis Company: Zipline Location: South San Francisco, CA Job Posted Time: 2026-09-03 14:20:20 Target Skills & Keywords : AutoCAD, CAD, MATLAB, Python, SolidWorks About the job Experience: •5 years of experience in CAE, structural analysis, crash safety, durability, or an equivalent discipline. Required Skills: •Own Zipline's crash safety analysis strategy for full-vehicle and component-level events; define load cases, failure modes, analysis methods, acceptance criteria, and reporting standards. •Design and develop custom mechanical test equipment supporting impact, crush, penetration, drop, abuse, fire, vibration, and structural testing of batteries and aircraft hardware. •Build and execute nonlinear explicit-dynamics models for aircraft and component crash, impact, drop, crush, penetration, and abuse events. Evaluate structural deformation, energy absorption, load paths, battery containment, electrical isolation, and other post-crash hazards. •Translate analysis results into design changes that improve containment, isolation, damage tolerance, and safe post-crash behavior. •Own durability analysis for powertrain components including busbars, motors, batteries, mounts, and supporting structures. Evaluate static and dynamic strength, modal response, random vibration, shock, harmonic loading, thermal-mechanical cycling, and fatigue life. •Develop rapid first-principles studies and reduced-order models to guide design trades before committing to detailed simulation. Deliver clear engineering guidance quickly as aircraft and component configurations evolve. •Build and maintain vehicle-level and detailed finite element models with appropriate fidelity for global load paths, local stresses, nonlinear contact, material behavior, joints, interfaces, and failure modes. •Plan analysis correlation with the test team: define pre-test predictions, instrumentation needs, data-processing methods, and post-test correlation workflows. Qualifications: •Minimum of 5 years of experience in CAE, structural analysis, crash safety, durability, or an equivalent discipline. •Demonstrated ownership of full-vehicle or component crash analysis, preferably in automotive, aerospace, motorsports, or other safety-critical industries. •Deep capability with nonlinear finite element analysis and explicit dynamics. Experience with LS-DYNA, Abaqus/Explicit, Radioss, PAM-CRASH, or equivalent tools. •History of performing durability analysis involving fatigue, random vibration, shock, harmonic response, thermal-mechanical cycling, and bolted joints. •Knowledge of powertrain hardware such as motors, busbars, and battery packs. •Proficiency with Nastran, FEMAP, ANSA, HyperMesh, nCode, ANSYS, Simcenter 3D, or equivalent CAE software. •Proficiency with NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent CAD software. •Proficiency with Python, MATLAB, or equivalent scripting tools to automate model creation, post-processing, data reduction, and engineering reports. •Strong engineering fundamentals in mechanics, energy absorption, nonlinear material behavior, plasticity, contact, joint modeling, fasteners, composites, metals, polymers, and failure modes. •Demonstrated success in analysis correlation: defining pre-test predictions, selecting instrumentation, processing test data, evaluating model agreement, and updating models based on hardware results. Compensation: •$130,000 - $180,000 / 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!