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# Sr/Staff System Test and Validation Engineer

- **Company:** Zipline
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $165,000.0 - $230,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Software Applications, C++ (Programming Language), Communications Protocols, Software Debugging, Failure Mode Effects Analysis, Hardware Design, Python (Programming Language), Radio-Frequency Identification, Robotic Automation Software, System Testing, Strategies of Testing, Rust (Programming Language), Data Pipelines
- **Published:** October 20, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.juju.com/job/15_a481466b2

## About the Role

* Demonstrated experience leading test engineers, equipment designers, and technicians for complex hardware programs.
 * Experience planning and running environmental, durability, and reliability test campaigns that inform engineering decisions.
 * Experience in reliability techniques including MTBF, Weibull analyses, and DFMEAs.
 * Strong electromechanical skills in embedded controls, real-time compute, and actuation.
 * Software proficiency (Python, Rust, C/C++)
 * Electrical engineering fundamentals including battery systems, communications protocols, and RF systems.
 * Strong hardware-debugging intuition and electrical troubleshooting skills for aircraft or similarly complex electromechanical systems.- Sound judgment to prioritize test capability, campaign scope, and fault investigations across multiple hardware programs.
 * Excellent ability to 'get unstuck' and make progress in a complex and changing environment.
 * Experience developing real-time controls in safety critical applications.

## Description

This team, and the fast discovery of hardware faults, is core to the success of Zipline and the velocity of hardware development and deployment.
What You'll Do

 * Develop novel ways of replicating in-flight environments on the ground, including external factors (dust, ingress, icing), and internal vehicle stresses.
 * Deeply understand the vehicle DFMEA and own the vehicle actuation during system test.
 * Translate mission profiles into qualification and life-test plans, including accelerated test design, stress levels, and sample size justification. Stay ahead of aircraft profiles and load curves, to help unlock new capability.
 * Develop health monitoring and anomaly detection software (Python, Rust) for aircraft and robotic systems, with emphasis on using the vehicle's on-board telemetry.
 * Drive the 'rapid failure finding' branch of the system test campaigns, a core input to design cycles and achieving maintenance goals.
 * Build data pipelines and automated analysis tooling to adapt flight-software validators for system tests.
 * Drive or develop directly the features needed in flight code to enable 'Test Mode' functionality.
 * Integrate off-board sensors (cameras, airspeed sensors, other instrumentation) for continuous monitoring of vehicle health and tester health during long-duration tests.
 * Conduct characterization of test assets, including developing analytical models and running instrumented test campaigns, to correlate test conditions to flight.

 - Drive decisions about test strategy overall: what new features are needed in system test, what should be tested at the system-level vs. component level vs. flight test. How to bring more coverage into system tests, and ways of rapid failure-finding.

 - Collaborate with the Reliability team to hone the strategy of long-duration vs. multiple vehicles being tested, as a function of the part-to-part variability and overall CapEx strategy.