{"id":3463337,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox","title":"Senior/Staff Electrical Engineer, Dropbox","company":{"id":15878,"name":"Zipline","domain":"zipline.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zipline","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["South San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":161000,"max_usd":296000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":563},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Dropbox","optional":false},{"name":"MATLAB","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-15T14:40:49Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T12:23:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"About Zipline\nZipline 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. \nOur 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.\nOur 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.\nWe 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.\nAbout You and The Role\nZipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. Dropbox is our customer-facing package-loading product that integrates mechatronics, sensors, electronics, access control, user interaction, firmware, and environmental protection so untrained users can hand off packages to our droids.\nAs a Senior or Staff Electrical Engineer on Dropbox, you will own critical electrical systems from architecture and component selection through detailed design, validation, production ramp, and fleet operation. Your scope will include power distribution, motor and actuator interfaces, sensing, PCBAs, wiring harnesses, connectors, grounding, protection, communications, and system diagnostics.\nDropbox operates unattended in demanding field environments and around untrained users. Its electrical systems must tolerate weather, installation variation, power disturbances, mechanical motion, contamination, service activity, and repeated daily operation while remaining safe and easy to diagnose.\nYou will work closely with Mechanical Engineering, Firmware, Systems, Safety, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Deployment, and Operations. This is a hands-on individual-contributor role with responsibility for both detailed electrical design and system-level product outcomes.\nAt the Staff level, you will additionally set the electrical architecture and technical direction across Dropbox generations, establish reusable design standards, and lead resolution of the program’s most complex cross-functional problems.\nWhat You'll Do\nOwn critical Dropbox electrical systems from requirements and architecture through production release and field deployment.\nDevelop electrical architecture for power distribution, control electronics, sensors, actuators, user interfaces, communications, and service diagnostics.\nTranslate product behavior, safety analyses, environmental conditions, mechanical interfaces, and field workflows into electrical requirements.\nDefine electrical success metrics such as power consumption, sensing coverage, fault-detection performance, environmental margin, production yield, and field reliability.\nSelect and integrate sensors, motors, actuators, motor drivers, power supplies, converters, protection devices, connectors, harnesses, and communications interfaces.\nDesign or guide the development of PCBAs, schematics, layouts, cables, wiring harnesses, interconnects, and electrical assembly documentation.\nOwn power budgets, grounding and shielding strategy, connector architecture, current-carrying margins, thermal derating, and protection coordination.\nDesign for electrical faults including overcurrent, short circuit, reverse polarity, overvoltage, undervoltage, brownouts, electrostatic discharge, connection errors, and loss of communication.\nPartner with Safety and Systems engineers to ensure electrical hazards are controlled through architecture, isolation, protection, sensing, and fault response.\nWork closely with Mechanical Engineering on electronics packaging, cable routing, connector access, environmental sealing, thermal management, strain relief, and serviceability.\nPartner with Firmware engineers to define sensor behavior, actuator interfaces, motor control, state transitions, interlocks, fault detection, telemetry, and recovery.\nEnsure electrical interfaces and configuration are unambiguous across product variants, site installations, and manufacturing builds.\nPerform circuit analysis, power analysis, signal-integrity assessment, tolerance analysis, derating, and worst-case analysis.\nBuild prototypes, instrument systems, perform bench testing, and use data to retire technical risk.\nDevelop validation plans covering functional performance, power quality, electrical safety, environmental exposure, ingress, thermal cycling, vibration, ESD, EMI/EMC, cable flexing, connector life, and fault injection.\nLead design reviews, DFMEAs, hazard reviews, and electrical readiness reviews.\nProduce complete schematics, drawings, specifications, interface-control documents, BOMs, test requirements, and release documentation.\nWork directly with suppliers to qualify components, PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, power systems, and manufacturing processes.\nPartner with NPI, Manufacturing, and Quality to develop scalable assembly, inspection, programming, calibration, and end-of-line test processes.\nSupport prototype builds, engineering validation, design validation, production validation, and manufacturing ramp.\nLead investigations of test, production, and field failures using telemetry, logs, electrical measurements, physical inspection, and structured root-cause methods.\nDrive issues from containment through corrective action and verify that fixes measurably reduce recurrence.\nUse fleet data and service records to improve electrical reliability, fault detection, diagnostics, and maintenance procedures.\nMentor engineers and establish electrical design, documentation, review, and release best practices.\nAt the Staff level, identify systemic technical risks, drive cross-generational architecture decisions, and align electrical, mechanical, firmware, test, and manufacturing strategies.\nWhat You'll Bring\nProven end-to-end ownership of complex electrical or electromechanical products through architecture, validation, production ramp, and field deployment.\nStrong electrical engineering fundamentals across analog, digital, power, sensors, motor interfaces, embedded systems, and communications.\nExperience designing electronics for systems containing motors, actuators, sensors, PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, and embedded controls.\nDemonstrated ability to develop robust power-distribution, grounding, shielding, protection, and interconnect architectures.\nExperience with schematic capture, PCB design reviews, component selection, tolerance analysis, and worst-case circuit analysis.\nHands-on proficiency with oscilloscopes, multimeters, power analyzers, electronic loads, logic analyzers, current probes, and data-acquisition equipment.\nExperience debugging intermittent problems involving power, signal integrity, connectors, sensors, communications, or firmware interaction.\nExperience designing for outdoor, industrial, automotive, aerospace, robotics, appliance, or similarly demanding environments.\nKnowledge of environmental protection, thermal derating, ESD, EMI/EMC, ingress, corrosion, vibration, and connector reliability.\nExperience defining verification plans, fault-injection tests, and production acceptance criteria.\nTrack record working directly with PCB, harness, component, and contract-manufacturing suppliers.\nExperience implementing DFM, DFT, end-of-line testing, calibration, and manufacturing controls.\nAbility to analyze telemetry or test data using Python, SQL, MATLAB, or equivalent tools.\nStrong systems judgment and the ability to recognize when an electrical symptom originates in mechanical hardware, firmware, configuration, or field conditions.\nClear written, verbal, and visual communication, including concise documentation of architecture decisions, assumptions, interfaces, and risks.\nLocation and logistics: this role is in person in South San Francisco and includes some travel to suppliers, manufacturers, test locations, and deployment sites as needed.\nOperating intensity: periodic off-hours support may be required during critical builds, test campaigns, production ramps, and field escalations.\nTraits: strong technical judgment, hands-on curiosity, disciplined documentation, comfort with ambiguity, and persistence until difficult failures are understood.\nNice to Have\nExperience with motor-control electronics, position sensing, safety interlocks, or automated mechanisms.\nExperience with batteries, solar power, or distributed low-voltage systems.\nExperience with functional-safety principles or electronics operating around untrained users.\nExperience developing remote diagnostics, fleet-health monitoring, or automated failure-detection tools.\nFirmware experience in C/C++ or experience debugging embedded systems at the hardware-software boundary.\nExperience with high-volume electromechanical products.\nWhat success looks like\nDropbox electrical systems meet safety, reliability, power, environmental, and production requirements.\nElectrical releases reach production with strong yield and without recurring integration issues.\nSensors, actuators, interlocks, and fault responses behave predictably across supported product configurations.\nField electrical failures are detected quickly, diagnosed from useful telemetry, and permanently corrected.\nManufacturing and Deployment teams can build, install, commission, and service Dropbox without repeated engineering intervention.\nElectrical architecture supports future Dropbox capabilities without unnecessary redesign or product variants.\nWhat Else You Need to Know\nThe starting cash range for this role is $170,000 - $255,000 plus additional equity. In office meals, subsidized medical, dental and vision insurance as well as a monthly cellphone and wellness stipend is also provided.\nZipline 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.\nWe 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!\nVoluntary Self-Identification\nFor 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.\nAs 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":11813,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Office meals","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Drones & UAVs","Delivery","Logistics"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-29T14:36:18Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 63 · green card filings: 13","filings_12m":63,"filings_prev_12m":47,"green_card_filings_12m":13,"median_offered_wage_usd":170658,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":4}],"liveness":{"score":77,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.855,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":14,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:1","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-30T16:19:00Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4484,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-31T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":15878},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=15878"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fzipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fzipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/zipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzipline-seniorstaff-electrical-engineer-dropbox"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3463337}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"zipline.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3463337},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}