Head of Systems Engineering

The role

You will lead the systems engineering team to define product capabilities roadmaps and decompose them into architectures. You will also handle system validation and verification for current platforms and new autonomous aircraft concepts.

What you will do

• Scope product level requirements, architecture, and decomposition
• Develop verification plans
• Monitor operational performance of key product attributes and functions
• Serve as a technical expert of high-reliability, safety-critical autonomous systems
• Define interfaces and drive cross disciplinary discussions to align on architectures
• Develop frameworks and facilitate trade studies to optimize performance, safety, and cost
• Create and maintain systems models and diagrams
• Set hardware and software release standards and test requirements
• Partner with safety engineering and regulatory teams to prove flight worthiness
• Grow and mentor a Systems Engineering team and adjacent teams

Required qualifications

• Demonstrated leadership delivering complex technical solutions amid ambiguity and competing priorities
• Track record of shipping high-reliability, safety-critical autonomous systems into real-world operation
• Deep systems-engineering experience with product requirements, architecture, interface definition, system decomposition, verification planning, and validation
• Technical judgment in safety-critical autonomy, including fail-safe, fault-tolerant, and fail-operative approaches
• Experience making principled tradeoffs among safety, performance, cost, and operational constraints using models, metrics, and test evidence
• Ability to develop technical leaders and communicate clear system decisions

Benefits

• Equity compensation
• Overtime pay
• Discretionary annual or performance bonuses
• Sales incentives
• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Paid time off

About the company

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. They design, build, and operate an autonomous logistics system to deliver food, medicine, and essential goods.