---
title: 'Test Maintenance Engineering Lead at Zipline'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/test-maintenance-engineering-lead-zipline-esparto-california-015tsxhray0n'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Test Maintenance Engineering Lead at Zipline 

- **Company:** Zipline 
- **Location:** Esparto California, United States
- **Posted:** 2026-09-09
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://www.zipline.com/open-roles/7989538003?gh_jid=7989538003

## Job description

## About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.

Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.

We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.

## About You and The Role

We are searching for an exceptional Test Maintenance Engineering Lead (Senior Manager/Director level) to build and oversee an elite, multi-state organization of maintenance technicians. In this highly critical role, you will be the linchpin between our hardware testing environments and our commercial operations.

You are, fundamentally, a strong people manager and a hands-on technical leader. You will define the correct managerial structure for a distributed workforce while remaining perfectly willing and capable of leading from the front—performing any task you ask of your technicians. Grounded in humility and professionalism, you will drive a culture of extreme accountability and rigorous standards representative of the highest echelons of aircraft maintenance. Your ultimate mission is to safeguard our commercial success: your team must proactively catch, escalate, and resolve technical and systematic challenges so that no process or quality gaps ever make it to the commercial organization, requiring them to ask for clarification or rework.  To do this you will partner closely with engineering teams across all disciplines.

## What You'll Do

- Build & Scale the Organization: Design the correct managerial hierarchy, hire, and build a world-class maintenance engineering organization composed of skilled technicians across multiple states and sites. Set crystal-clear expectations and drive accountability at every level.
- Lead from the Front: Act as a hands-on technical leader. You must be highly capable and willing to jump in and perform any task that is asked of your technicians, leading by example with deep technical competence.
- Drive Aviation-Grade Standards: Hold yourself and your entire team to the absolute highest standard, representative of rigorous aircraft maintenance. Instill a culture of safety, precision, and unwavering quality without sacrificing speed and agility.
- Safeguard Commercial Success: Drive the team to proactively catch, escalate, and help resolve various technical and systematic challenges before they move downstream. Your success is directly determined by preventing process and quality gaps from making it to the commercial organization.  Doing this will be dependent on you and every member of your team understanding deeply the operating reality of the product outside of the test environment.
- Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work seamlessly across Engineering, Quality, Operations, and Commercial teams with the utmost professionalism, bridging the gap between testing phases and real-world commercial deployment. You will partner with, and hold accountable, these teams to ensure success is earned.
- Lead with Humility: Foster a humble, ego-free team culture centered on continuous improvement, active listening, and dedicated support for your technicians on the ground.

## What You'll Bring

- Extensive Industry Experience: 10-15+ years of progressive technical experience in aviation maintenance, test engineering, hardware operations, or aerospace manufacturing.
- Senior Leadership & Scale: 5-8+ years of direct people management experience. You have a proven track record of designing organizational structures and scaling distributed teams of technicians across multiple states and sites.
- Hands-on Technical Prowess: You possess the technical depth to troubleshoot and execute maintenance tasks firsthand. An Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) license, equivalent military aviation experience, or an aerospace engineering degree combined with hands-on mechanical experience is highly preferred.
- Process & Quality Obsession: Deep expertise in root cause analysis, defect containment, and process engineering. You have a history of building systems that definitively prevent downstream operational escapes.
- Cross-Functional Professionalism: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics, build consensus, and interface professionally with both highly technical engineering teams and commercial leaders.
- Humble Mindset: An ego-free approach to leadership. You are as comfortable turning a wrench on the shop floor as you are presenting strategic organizational plans to the executive team.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting salary for this role is $150,000 - $216,000. Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply! Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

## About Zipline 

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zipline is an American robotics company that operates the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery service, transporting medical supplies, food, and retail goods across multiple continents.
- **Entity Type**: Private (early-stage startup)
- **Headquarters**: South San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: March 2014
- **Founders**: Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn, William Hetzler

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Logistics / Drone delivery
- **Target customers**: B2B (healthcare systems, governments, retailers like Walmart and Chipotle) and B2C (home delivery via the Zipline app)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Build the first logistics system that serves all people equally” – initially focused on saving lives by delivering blood and medicine to remote communities, now expanded to instant urban delivery.

## Products & Services
- **Platform 1 (P1)**: Long-range, rural delivery drone. Carries up to 4 lbs, roundtrip range 120+ miles, cruise speed 60 mph. Uses parachute delivery. Designed for enterprise, government, and healthcare supply chains.
- **Platform 2 (P2)**: Urban/suburban home delivery drone. Carries up to 8 lbs, service radius 10 miles (or 24 miles one way), cruise speed 70 mph. Delivers via a tether from up to 300 ft, allowing contactless drop-off. Launched in 2025 and used for food, retail, and health products.
- **Zipping Points**: Modular ground stations that allow businesses to load orders onto drones without specialized equipment.
- **FlightIQ**: Advanced onboard autonomy and perception suite for safe navigation and delivery.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: 2 million commercial deliveries completed (as of January 2026) and 130 million autonomous miles flown.[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipline_(drone_delivery_company))[zipline-fact-sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not disclosed in available sources. Key partners include Walmart, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Crumbl, Blaze Pizza, Wendy’s, and many other restaurant brands. In healthcare, works with more than 5,000 hospitals and health centers.
- **Growth Signals**: Expanded into urban home delivery in 2025 (P2) with service in Pea Ridge, Arkansas and 20+ communities in Dallas-Fort Worth. Obtained FAA authorization for beyond visual line of sight operations. Reports 56% decrease in maternal mortality and 66% decrease in missed malaria treatments in served regions.[zipline-fact-sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Autonomous drone fleet**: One of the world’s largest commercial deployments of autonomous robots, with custom software running on Nvidia chips.
- **FAA approval**: All operations and aircraft are FAA-approved, including pioneering use of Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM).
- **Quieter than road vehicles**: Drones hover high and descend on a tether, generating noise lower than common neighborhood sounds.
- **Extensive testing**: One of the largest aviation testing campaigns, with operations in rain, wind, and storms.
- **Integrated logistics platform**: Beyond drones, Zipline provides warehousing, inventory management, cold chain storage, and fulfillment software.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling the Platform 2 urban delivery network across the U.S., particularly through partnerships with major retailers and restaurants.
- Deepening healthcare impact by expanding into new countries and product categories (prescriptions, groceries, convenience items).
- Continuing to reduce delivery times and environmental footprint (0 emissions per delivery, compared to automotive delivery).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture values**: Ownership & Accountability, Direct Feedback & Communication, Continuous Improvement, Customer Obsession, Servant Leadership (as stated on careers page). Emphasis on “Make it matter” and mission-driven work.[careers](https://www.zipline.com/careers)
- **Work environment**: Headquartered in South San Francisco with hardware and software teams. The company assembles its drones in America. Likely on-site given the hardware focus; remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated.
- **Impact**: Opportunity to work on life-saving technology (60,000+ lives saved) and shape the future of instant logistics.
- **Engineering culture**: Build and iterate on autonomous systems, airspace deconfliction, and large-scale robotics deployments.

## Sources
1. [Zipline Careers](https://www.zipline.com/careers)
2. [Zipline Homepage](https://www.zipline.com/)
3. [About Zipline](https://www.zipline.com/about)
4. [Zipline Fact Sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)
5. [Wikipedia - Zipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipline_(drone_delivery_company))
6. [Greenhouse Careers Page](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/flyzipline)

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