Head of Dropbox

About Zipline

Zipline is the world's largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to ensure access to food, medicine, and essential goods anytime, anywhere. Zipline designs, builds, and operates a global autonomous logistics system delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably across four continents.

Dropbox is Zipline's ground-side hardware system for autonomous package loading, storage, transfer, and pickup. It combines mechatronics, electrical systems, sensing, test infrastructure, field reliability, manufacturability, and deployment constraints into one customer-facing product.

This role reports to the Chief Hardware Officer and leads the mechanical, electrical, test, and technician teams responsible for taking the product from architecture through design, validation, launch, and scalable deployment.

What You'll Do

• Own Dropbox hardware execution across mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, testing, technician work, integration, validation, and release readiness.
• Lead system-level architecture tradeoffs across throughput, reliability, safety, installability, manufacturability, serviceability, regulatory impact, and deployment cost.
• Drive hardware development from prototype through production-intent design, including mechanisms, enclosures, sensing, harnessing, power systems, electronics, and test coverage.
• Build the hardware team's operational processes including priorities, staffing, technical reviews, issue triage, design gates, DVP&R, build planning, and escalation paths.
• Manage technical risk across moving mechanisms, dynamic harnesses, motor and sensor architecture, package handoff, public-facing safety, environmental exposure, and field service.
• Partner with firmware, autonomy, RF, cloud, operations, manufacturing, supply chain, regulatory, and customer-facing teams to deploy Dropbox at partner sites.
• Create validation evidence for mechanical safety, electrical safety, environmental robustness, package quality, site compatibility, and operational reliability.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective action for design, test, production, and field issues.
• Hire, coach, and manage multidisciplinary teams of engineers and technicians.
• Make decisions balancing speed, robustness, complexity, cost, and future extensibility.

What You'll Bring

• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary hardware teams through fast product development cycles.
• Strong mechanical and electrical systems judgment with the ability to challenge architecture, test plans, and failure-mode assumptions.
• Experience with electromechanical products involving motion, sensing, harnessing, safety interlocks, environmental exposure, and production validation.
• Ability to manage hardware development from architecture through builds, testing, supplier engagement, manufacturing handoff, and field support.
• Strong product judgment around user experience, reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, and cost.
• Ability to build team structure, clarify ownership, and turn ambiguous technical work into executable plans.
• Comfort working across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, operations, regulatory, and leadership stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills around technical risk, trade studies, decision logs, and launch readiness.
• Data-driven mindset focused on testing, prototyping, design reviews, failure analysis, and acceptance criteria.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity and inclusion in hiring.