Mechanical Test Equipment Design Engineer, Crash Safety

The role

You will develop custom mechanical equipment to evaluate structural integrity, crashworthiness, battery safety, and failure modes. This involves designing and building robust test equipment that reproduces extreme loading conditions.

What you will do

• Own end-to-end development of crash safety equipment from requirements to continuous improvement.
• Design and develop custom mechanical test equipment for batteries and aircraft hardware.
• Design structural frames, fixtures, reaction structures, containment systems, and mechanisms.
• Develop systems utilizing hydraulic, pneumatic, servo-electric, and mechanical actuation.
• Perform engineering analyses including hand calculations, tolerance stacks, and FEA.
• Produce CAD assemblies, detailed drawings, GD&T, and bills of materials.
• Design equipment with operator safety as a primary requirement.
• Partner with electrical, controls, and software engineers to integrate instrumentation and automation.
• Build, commission, troubleshoot, validate, and improve laboratory equipment.
• Lead supplier engagement for fabricated equipment and custom mechanical assemblies.

Required qualifications

• Experience designing mechanical systems, structural equipment, automated machinery, manufacturing equipment, or engineering test equipment.
• Strong mechanical design skills using NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent CAD software.
• Strong engineering fundamentals including machine design, structural analysis, GD&T, tolerance analysis, hand calculations, bolted joints, fatigue, material selection, and design for manufacturing.
• Experience performing structural analysis using hand calculations and FEA.
• Familiarity with hydraulic, pneumatic, servo-electric, or other high-force actuation systems.
• Experience designing welded structures, machined assemblies, and fabricated equipment.
• Hands-on experience assembling, commissioning, troubleshooting, and improving mechanical equipment.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across multidisciplinary engineering teams and communicate technical tradeoffs.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting crash, impact, abuse, structural, environmental, or durability testing

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.