Flyzipline
Mechanical Test Engineer, Motors (Senior)
South San Francisco, California, USA. Posted 4 months ago
The role
You will characterize motors, propulsion systems, actuators, and propeller subassemblies in the lab. You will own performance and reliability test campaigns to inform design release, vehicle readiness, and production-test decisions.
What you will do
- Conduct full electromechanical characterization of BLDC motors
- Evaluate propulsion systems for thrust, efficiency, and thermal behavior
- Test servo and motor-based actuators
- Define and own test specifications
- Perform root cause analysis on field failures
- Own the full performance and reliability test campaign for hardware
- Characterize wear-out mechanisms for actuator and propeller subassemblies
- Develop ways for validating motor and structural models and FEA validation
- Partner with mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers
- Work with manufacturing to develop production test strategies
Required qualifications
- Hands-on experience with electric motors and actuators, including efficiency characterization, losses evaluation, testing to evaluate electrical and thermal models
- Hands-on experience with actuator performance and control system evaluation
- Hands-on experience with structural and dynamics performance, including material testing, dynamic response, accelerometer and strain instrumentation
- Experience building or improving test fixtures, dynamometers, thrust stands, instrumentation, or automated data-acquisition systems
- Proficiency in Python or equivalent
- Sound engineering judgment to connect test results to design decisions, model validation, reliability risks, and field performance
- Experience working across hardware design and manufacturing teams
Benefits
- Equity compensation
- 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.