Aviation Sustainment Engineer

About Zipline

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. Through our technology which includes 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

Do you love finding creative ways to solve time-sensitive, mission-critical technical and operational problems? The Aviation Sustainment Engineering (ASE) team is the first responder whenever our customers encounter issues and are tasked with providing prompt, sound, customer-centric solutions to facilitate unblocking our customers to perform critical deliveries. Furthermore, the ASE team is responsible for monitoring the in-field performance of our aircraft and ground equipment, identifying trending issues, supporting mitigation activities before identified issues significantly impact our operations, and providing insight to cross-functional stakeholders to enable targeted improvements to cost, reliability, and operational availability of our fleet.

As an Aviation Sustainment Engineer, your job will be to ensure our customers are always able to perform mission-critical deliveries, especially as we continue to scale. This means not only being savvy in solving “today’s problems”, but also maintaining a high-level view and being proactive in identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and other future operational challenges the company may face. You will work closely with Field Support Engineers, various operational leads, and our flight and fulfillment operators to eliminate issues early and drive operational improvements to ensure Zipline succeeds as we scale. If working in a highly cross-functional environment, solving complex problems, and driving continuous improvement appeal to you, you’ll thrive here.

What You'll Do

• Monitor in-service feedback and triage emergent technical and operational issues
• Maintain high level awareness of overall fleet performance and perform deep dives into our field data as appropriate to create intuitive visualizations, and present actionable insights to a variety of stakeholders
• Lead root cause analysis and containment actions; directly support corrective actions and preventive action (RCCA/PA) analysis
• Become the go-to subject matter expert on troubleshooting and repairing the system in your area of responsibility
• Own development and upkeep of troubleshooting guides, operational guides, and other operational documentation that supports our operators in continuously serving their customers
• Work hand-in-hand with Field Systems Engineering and Design Engineering on the top technical issues occuring in the field to develop interim mitigation strategies and long-term solutions

What You'll Bring

• You have a background in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering (or similar field), or previous experience as a maintenance engineer, technician (or similar field); can learn technical information quickly; and can translate between operational needs and technical solutions in a variety of disciplines
• Previous experience working in a regulated industry (such as aviation, nuclear, or health) is beneficial but not required for this role
• You have a record of solving technical problems in a fast-paced environment
• You have experience with developing and validating troubleshooting guides and procedures
• You can communicate effectively (verbally and in writing) and have the ability to build and maintain strong working relationships with a variety of cross-functional stakeholders (flight and fulfillment operators, operations leadership, engineering)
• You are motivated by helping people and unblocking operations
• You are willing to work some nights/weekends and travel roughly 10-15% of the time
• You are eligible to work in Rwanda

What Else You Need to Know

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

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!