Maintenance Operations Engineering Technician

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.

Zipline builds autonomous delivery systems that move essential goods. As a Maintenance Operations Engineering Technician in Esparto, California, you will keep prototype flight vehicles, ground infrastructure, and test equipment safe, configured, and ready for engineering development and field operations.

You will own hands-on maintenance and test execution: replacing components, preparing vehicles and test setups, running endurance campaigns, and isolating first-order issues. Your work enables safe test execution, reliable data capture, accurate configuration records, and evidence engineers use for design and vehicle-readiness decisions.

This role is based on site in Esparto, California, with flexibility required to support testing operations at other locations across the United States.

• Maintain prototype aircraft, ground infrastructure, and test equipment to keep approved test campaigns executable and vehicles available for engineering work.

• Replace vehicle components, perform checkouts, and maintain complete maintenance documentation and configuration records.

• Execute semi-automated vehicle checkouts, reliability campaigns, and endurance tests using documented procedures and repeatable setups.

• Prepare test articles, equipment, instrumentation, and data-acquisition systems so test specifications can be executed as written.

• Verify completed maintenance and test setups meet documented configuration, safety-check, instrumentation, and data-capture requirements before test execution.

• Independently isolate and document first-order test-system or test-article faults; surface deviations and escalate root-cause resolution to engineers.

• Produce test reports that connect observations and data to reliability improvements, design iterations, and vehicle-readiness decisions.

• Travel to support testing, maintenance, and operational needs at other Zipline locations across the United States.

• Experience operating common machine-shop equipment and building mechanical assemblies, fixtures, jigs,