Senior Mechanical Engineer - Stress Analysis
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
You enjoy solving complex structural problems using first principles analysis coupled with system level finite element models (FEM). You will be responsible for the structural design and analysis of aircraft primary structure from conceptual architecture phase through qualification testing.In this role you will own the top level global FEM including setting and upholding all model standards for materials, interfaces, load cases, numbering, and model validation. This role works closely with subsystem engineers to define stiffness and load requirements needed to meet system goals as well as jumping in to design hardware when needed. You will work closely with Reliability and Test Engineering to identify, investigate, and root cause failures discovered in testing and in the field.
How to know if it's you: You’ve built your own prototypes to get quick answers, pencil and paper calculations are always your first step, you prefer simple and fast over detailed and large, you are on the floor during system testing, you have never presented a FEM plot without adjusting the legend scale . On any given day you could be building test articles in our composites/prototype labs, developing simple models to inform design trade studies, performing structural tests to validate analysis, working across disciplines to tackle complex system level challenges, root causing a test or field failure, or in the field supporting flight tests.
Zipline was founded by engineers dedicated to making the world a better place. We are building a new global industry and are looking for a talented engineer who takes a hands-on approach and will use analysis to drive design. The ideal candidate will be someone who excels in a fast paced, dynamic environment and is excited to own and drive simple, elegant solutions to complex problems that will help save lives every day.
What You'll Do
- Vehicle Structural Analysis
- Evaluate and optimize system (flight and ground) for structural loads, vibration modes, and deflections
- Perform analysis and sizing of airframe primary and secondary structure including static, dynamic, stability and damage tolerance analysis for metallic and non-metallic structures
- Classical stress analysis (Roark/Bruhn) to do initial sizing
- Dynamic analysis, including structural modes, random vibration, and forced harmonic vibration
- Create Analysis Models
- Own top level Global Finite Element Model (GFEM) management, material properties, numbering, interface control to cleanly integrate subsystem engineers’ detailed models
- Drive design trades with data from lightweight global FEM (Beams/Shells) that can be rapidly updated (daily) to match evolving configurations
- Determine the appropriate level of modelling fidelity for novel designs and create validated FEMs that can accurately represent the key failure modes of the design
- Level up the company’s engineers by building and documenting standardized in-house tools, processes, and best practices for FEMs
- Experimental Correlation of Flight and Test Data
- Identify and define when test correlation is required to validate simulation models including static, dynamic, and flight tests
- Produce pre-test predictions, instrumentation locations, and post test data analysis to tune model stiffness and stress results within 5% of test
- Rapidly resolve test issues (hours) and provide corrective action direction for issues found in qualification testing
- Work closely with design and test engineers to determine test requirements and support vehicle level tests
What You'll Bring
- Passion for and demonstrated history of solving complex engineering challenges
- Minimum 5 years experience with structural analysis of metallic, composite, and plastic structures
- Top level GFEM management with contributions from 3-5 engineers
- Experience with industry standard analysis tools (Siemens NX, FEMAP/NX Nastran, Siemens Design Center, MATLAB, Python)
- Vehicle/System level architecture analysis
- History of working with cross functional teams to solve complex engineering problems
What Else You Need to Know
The salary range for this position is $145,000 to $190,000. 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!