Head of Manufacturing Engineering

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Using robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

 

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

 

About You and The Role  

As the Head of Manufacturing Engineering, you will lead the effort to scale our in-house manufacturing capabilities while continuously developing new processes to support design changes and new internal builds. You’ll leverage your deep technical expertise to understand core design requirements and ensure they are consistently met during assembly. This role is highly cross-functional, involving close collaboration with design engineers, supplier industrial engineers, operations program managers, quality engineers, maintenance engineers, and manufacturing technicians.

As the ultimate owner of all in-house manufacturing, your team will be responsible for developing and validating all manufacturing processes, designing and modifying line layouts, and managing equipment design and fabrication. Your first major initiative will focus on developing multiple new manufacturing lines, along with the supporting processes and equipment, to bring in-house production of complex electro-mechanical sub-assemblies that feed into our top-level systems.

You are a seasoned manufacturing engineer with a strong track record of developing production lines from early prototypes to fully scaled (and potentially highly automated) manufacturing. You have a deep understanding of failure modes that can impact high-volume production, and you proactively design processes to detect or prevent issues before they arise. With a solid grasp of both manufacturing limitations and capabilities, you propose design solutions that are efficient to produce and easy to inspect.

You take a critical and unbiased approach to process evaluation, distinguishing between what must be fixed and what would be nice to fix. You raise design and process concerns with humility, creating a collaborative environment where engineers feel empowered to share ideas. As an experienced mentor, you are a trusted technical leader—sharing best practices, reviewing designs, and supporting the development of junior team members.

What You'll Do  

• Lead and develop a high-performing team of manufacturing engineers. Set a clear vision, define ambitious goals, and foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and technical excellence.
• Cultivate a performance-driven team culture that emphasizes a bias for action, radical simplicity, and the pursuit of reliable, scalable manufacturing processes.
• Own the end-to-end development of manufacturing capabilities, including planning, budgeting, designing, procuring, commissioning, and validating in-house assembly lines and associated facilities and equipment.
• Define and implement manufacturing process documentation, including process flows, PFMEAs, standard work instructions, setup checklists, training plans, and control plans.
• Partner closely with design engineering teams to identify and drive design-for-manufacturability improvements that simplify assembly, improve product quality, and reduce cost.
• Provide expert technical support to production operations, assisting with root cause analysis and implementing corrective actions for production issues.
• Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for cost, quality, and delivery—including first-pass yield, cycle time, cost of poor quality, and on-time delivery.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across all manufacturing lines, exploring automation, vision systems, and other innovations to eliminate waste, reduce variability, and increase throughput.
• Own capital planning and resource allocation for new production lines and facility upgrades to support increasing production demand and new product introductions.
• Develop ramp-up strategies and scalability plans to support production growth—from low-rate initial builds to full-rate manufacturing and global deployment.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Supply Chain, Quality, Product Design, Operations, and Program Management to ensure alignment and execution across all phases of product lifecycle.

What You'll Bring 

• Over 10 years of relevant experience designing and developing manufacturing lines - proven track record of scaling something from the 10s of products per month to the 1000s of products per month.
• Over 3 years of direct experience with manufacturing engineering leadership - ideally on complex electro-mechanical products.
• Exceptional ability to keep multiple projects moving forward in parallel.
• Experience with fixture and equipment design to produce 1000s of products per month.
• Demonstrated CAD fluency. 
• Proven ability to solve challenging problems quickly and seamlessly.
• Hands-on experience with factory layout design, process mapping, and line balancing.
• Demonstrated core competencies - GD&T, PFMEA, Process Development and Implementation.
• Experience with DFM/DFA principles and working closely with design engineers.
• Understanding of Traditional & Non-Traditional Manufacturing & Assembly Processes such as Injection Molding, Stamping, Die Casting, 3D Printing, Fastening, Welding, Adhesive Joining, etc.
• Excellent communication - written, verbal, and visual. You know how to tailor to your audience with the right level of technical depth.
• Worked in a super fast-paced environment that is in a constant state of evolution.

What Else You Need to Know