Head of System Modeling

Company: Zipline
Location: South San Francisco
Posted on: April 1, 2026

Job Description:

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 The Systems Modeling Team The Systems Modeling Team has tremendous power to shape Zipline’s products. We develop physics-based models and use them to architect and optimize our aircraft, as well as the supporting logistics system. Through simulation, we can rapidly explore a vast array of design options for future products, and we can find ways to wring more performance out of our existing products. Systems Modeling brings diverse teams and fields together (e.g. mechanical, aerodynamics, electromagnetics, electrical, battery chemistry, thermal, controls, fleet operations, economics) to gain new insights. We translate technical conversations into rigorously framed engineering problems. We value asking pertinent questions and generating coherent answers. What You'll Do You will lead a team of high-caliber engineers applying analytical skills at both the product architectural and fleet operations level. Your team’s contributions will guide and accelerate key decisions during many phases of engineering development, and scaling. Importantly, you will challenge assumptions and requirements – especially those which drive the most cost and complexity. You will relentlessly pursue high-quality insights by improving validation processes, checking simulation results with independent hand calculations, safeguarding model inputs, and calling out where model assumptions are weakly supported by data. The fundamental role of your team is to build and maintain models that close the loop between product performance goals and hardware/software requirements. For example, this might consist of an aircraft model with subcomponents for motors, inverters, propellers, wings, batteries, position/orientation controllers and more. You’ll zoom in on the finer points of each subsystem: Should the propulsive motor be mated to a gearbox? How can we design it to supply sufficient torque without overheating, while weighing as little as possible? What type of battery chemistry should be selected, in light of requirements for lifetime, mass, power capability, and energy? You’ll ask critical questions at the system-level: How much range is an acceptable trade-off for payload mass? How does unfavorable weather impact aircraft performance capabilities? You’ll explore the vast space of mission types, sub-system faults, and other key events to understand their impact on the system. Your team also optimizes the operational efficiency of the Zipline fleet, directly impacting our customers. What is the smallest number of aircraft that can effectively support a given service area? How might we maximize deliveries per unit hardware by identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, or by adding sophistication to our aircraft dispatching strategy? How should we manage battery charging, given competing objectives of battery life versus charging speed? Is it best to avoid windier parts of the day, or is it ultimately too costly to sit idle? Your team’s model-driven analysis will link operational decisions with customer-facing outcomes. What You'll Bring Demonstrated experience building mathematical models and modeling frameworks, across languages, methods, and tools Deep programming experience in Python, MATLAB, or Rust An understanding of numerical methods Strong convictions about the defining attributes of high-quality code tools Demonstrated experience integrating simulation tools across platforms and software languages A mastery of engineering and physics fundamentals: Energy and power Dynamics (kinematics, forces, moments, acceleration/rotation) Fluids and aerodynamics Heat transfer and thermodynamics Experience in fleet-level simulations and optimization Range Modeling Throughput Modeling Network Modeling Fluency in system-level optimization An ability to distill an open-ended topic into a rigorously framed problem statement Familiarity with a variety of solution techniques, and the ability to identify an appropriate technique for a given problem Comfort with empiricism An ability to interpret complex datasets that span multiple physical realms Experience designing test campaigns for model validation Familiarity with practical considerations in embedded algorithm design Excellent communication skills, particularly in distilling multidimensional solution spaces into straightforward insights Demonstrated leadership attributes Awareness of the most critical needs of the company, and motivation to seek out unsolved problems An ability to drive progress on many projects at once, and to dynamically prioritize projects in a fast-evolving environment Courage to make tough decisions in the face of imperfect information Adherence to thorough and well-organized documentation Patience to teach technical skills to others, while remaining open-minded to learning new skills yourself Empathy and understanding for the people you work with Minimum Experience: 10 years related industry experience BS in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or similar discipline; MS strongly preferred What Else You Need to Know The starting cash range for this role is Salary range: $190,000.00 - $230,000.00. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more. 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!

Keywords: Zipline, Alameda , Head of System Modeling, Engineering , South San Francisco, California