Industrial & Operations Engineer

About You and The Role 

As an Industrial & Operations Engineer on the Manufacturing Engineering team, you will own factory performance and scaling.

You will take a factory-level view of production; connecting demand, labor, equipment, space, material flow, process capability, and capital investment into an integrated production system. Your job is to understand how the factory performs today, identify what will constrain us tomorrow, and design the systems required to scale. This is not a reporting or planning-only role. You will spend time on the production floor observing how work actually happens, use data to identify constraints and opportunities, and then drive changes to layouts, staffing models, processes, buffers, equipment, and operating strategies.

You will help answer fundamental questions such as: How much can we build? What is preventing us from building more? What will break as demand increases? Where should we add people, equipment, automation, or space? And what should the factory look like at the next order of magnitude of production?

What You'll Do

• Own factory-level performance, scalability, and production system design, connecting individual manufacturing processes into an efficient end-to-end production system.
• Develop and continuously improve factory and line layouts, optimizing workstation design, material presentation, operator movement, equipment placement, and overall material flow.
• Lead time studies, cycle-time analysis, labor modeling, and line balancing to establish production standards and improve labor efficiency.
• Build and maintain capacity models that translate demand forecasts into requirements for labor, equipment, tooling, shifts, floor space, and capital.
• Identify current and future production bottlenecks, quantify their impact, and lead changes that increase throughput and factory utilization.
• Define WIP, buffer, queue, and rework strategies that protect production output while minimizing excess inventory and lead time.
• Develop scalable operating strategies for products moving from prototype and pilot production into sustained higher-rate manufacturing.
• Translate production targets into clear factory requirements and actionable scaling plans.
• Partner with Manufacturing Engineers and Production teams to define takt time, staffing models, station loading, standard work, and production-line architecture.
• Use production data to identify opportunities to improve throughput, cycle time, labor efficiency, utilization, WIP, and cost.
• Develop scenarios for future demand and identify capacity constraints before they impact production.
• Lead analysis supporting make-versus-buy decisions, including manufacturing cost, capital requirements, labor, capacity, quality, flexibility, and scaling risk.
• Build business cases and ROI analyses for automation, equipment, tooling, facility expansion, and other CapEx investments.
• Evaluate where automation meaningfully improves the production system versus where simpler process, tooling, or workflow improvements provide better returns.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Material Planning to improve lineside material availability, replenishment strategies, inventory placement, and production flow.
• Establish factory-level KPIs and operating mechanisms that make performance visible and enable teams to identify and correct deviations quickly.
• Create models, dashboards, and decision-making tools that allow Manufacturing and Operations leaders to make data-driven scaling decisions.
• Drive continuous improvement projects from problem definition through implementation and measurable production impact.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 3+ years of experience in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
• Strong understanding of production system design, capacity planning, line balancing, takt time, cycle-time analysis, standard work, and manufacturing flow.
• Demonstrated experience performing time studies and translating observations into labor and capacity models.
• Experience designing or improving manufacturing layouts and material-flow systems.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn imperfect production data into clear engineering and business decisions.
• Experience identifying manufacturing constraints and driving improvements in throughput, productivity, utilization, lead time, or cost.
• Ability to build financial and operational models that support CapEx, automation, make/buy, and factory-scaling decisions.
• Strong spreadsheet and data-analysis skills; comfort working with manufacturing data from ERP, MES, labor-tracking, and production systems.
• Ability to work directly on the factory floor, understand how production actually operates, and collaborate effectively with technicians, manufacturing engineers, production leaders, quality engineers, supply chain, and design engineering.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to convert complex analysis into simple recommendations and executable plans.
• A high degree of ownership. You are comfortable identifying an ambiguous factory-level problem, defining what needs to be measured, developing a solution, and driving it through implementation.

Nice to Have

• Experience scaling a complex electromechanical product from NPI or low-rate production into higher-volume manufacturing.
• Experience with discrete-event simulation, optimization, operations research, or other production-system modeling techniques.
• Experience with SQL, Python, BI tools, or other methods for analyzing large manufacturing datasets.
• Experience with ERP and MES platforms and developing manufacturing dashboards or operational reporting systems.
• Experience developing business cases for automation or major manufacturing equipment.
• Experience with Lean manufacturing concepts, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, value-stream mapping, or structured continuous-improvement methodologies.
• Experience supporting factory expansions, new production lines, or greenfield manufacturing operations.

What Success Looks Like

You will be successful when Zipline can confidently answer, with data:

• What is our true production capacity?
• What is constraining output today?
• What will constrain us at the next level of demand?
• How many people, stations, shifts, and pieces of equipment do we need?
• Where should we invest capital—and where shouldn't we?
• How should material, WIP, and rework flow through the factory?
• What changes will produce the largest improvement in throughput, efficiency, and cost?

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $104,000 - $170,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

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!