Mechanical Engineering Manager, Dropbox

About You and The Role

Dropbox is Zipline’s customer-facing product through which partners load orders for autonomous pickup by Platform 2.

Dropbox integrates package loading and validation, mechatronics, controlled access, handoff interfaces, sensors, electronics, environmental protection, and service features. It must be intuitive for an untrained user, safe around people, reliable over high cycle counts, and capable of operating unattended in demanding environments.

Zipline is hiring a Mechanical Engineering Manager to lead the team responsible for the mechanical architecture, development, production, and field performance of Dropbox.

You will manage and grow a team of mechanical engineers while partnering with Industrial Design, Electrical Engineering, Embedded Software, Systems, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Deployment, Operations, and Product. You will own the current product and define the next generation required to support significantly larger deployment volumes.

This is a player-coach role. You will set direction, develop engineers, and remain close enough to the hardware to guide architecture, review critical analyses, and help resolve the team’s hardest technical problems.

What You'll Do

• Manage, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of mechanical engineers.
• Hire exceptional engineers and establish clear ownership, technical direction, and execution plans.
• Own the Dropbox mechanical architecture and roadmap from requirements through field deployment.
• Lead development of the enclosure, structure, elevator, lid and access mechanisms, latches, package interfaces, droid interfaces, electronics packaging, harnessing, sealing, and service features.
• Translate customer and system needs into mechanical requirements, interface definitions, and validation plans.
• Drive system trades across safety, reliability, user experience, throughput, installation, serviceability, manufacturability, cost, and schedule.
• Establish system-level datum structures, GD&T, alignment schemes, and tolerance strategies.
• Integrate mechanical design with sensing and firmware behavior for motion control, homing, access control, obstruction detection, fault handling, and service recovery.
• Guide the selection and integration of motors, actuators, transmissions, bearings, sensors, connectors, PCBAs, harnesses, and seals.
• Ensure designs account for fatigue, wear, contamination, water ingress, corrosion, thermal variation, misuse, package variation, and installation variation.
• Use first-principles analysis, hand calculations, tolerance analysis, kinematic analysis, FEA, prototypes, and testing to guide decisions.
• Drive design reviews, DFMEAs, hazard assessments, fault-tree analyses, and risk-retirement plans.
• Define component and system testing for functionality, lifetime, environmental exposure, abuse, obstruction, motion faults, package variation, and droid handoff.
• Lead Dropbox through prototype builds, engineering validation, design validation, production validation, and volume ramp.
• Partner with NPI, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, and suppliers to achieve scalable, high-yield production.
• Drive DFM and DFA across sheet metal, injection-molded plastics, machined parts, castings, extrusions, seals, and electromechanical assemblies.
• Lead responses to test, production, and field failures, including containment, root cause, corrective action, and permanent resolution.
• Use field reliability, service, and telemetry data to prioritize product improvements.
• Reduce failure rates, recovery time, maintenance burden, installation complexity, and total cost of ownership.

What You'll Bring

• Past success managing and developing an excellent team of mechanical engineers.
• A record of hiring strong engineers and creating a culture of ownership, urgency, and technical rigor.
• Experience leading first-of-a-kind electromechanical products from architecture through production and field deployment.
• Significant direct technical contributions to mechanical product architecture earlier in your career.
• Deep experience with mechanisms, structures, actuators, sensors, electronics integration, and high-cycle moving assemblies.
• Strong fundamentals in hand calculations, GD&T, tolerance analysis, materials, fatigue, wear, bolted joints, and FEA.
• Experience designing around PCBAs, harnesses, connectors, motors, transmissions, sensors, and embedded control systems.
• Experience with sheet metal, injection-molded plastics, machined parts, castings, extrusions, seals, and relevant high-volume processes.
• Demonstrated success with DFM, DFA, supplier engagement, inspection planning, and manufacturing ramp.
• Experience defining validation plans and demonstrating safety, reliability, environmental, and lifetime requirements.
• Experience resolving complex production or field failures through disciplined root-cause analysis.
• Strong customer judgment and an understanding that usability, serviceability, and fault recovery are engineering requirements.
• Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills.

Nice to Have

• Experience with outdoor, unattended, or customer-facing electromechanical products.
• Experience in robotics, industrial automation, material handling, automotive, appliances, kiosks, or similar systems.
• Experience designing powered mechanisms that operate around untrained users.
• Experience with environmental sealing, drainage, condensation, corrosion, and wide-temperature operation.
• Experience using fleet telemetry or reliability data to improve mechanical hardware.
• Experience with Siemens NX.
• Aerospace-, automotive-, medical-, or similarly rigorous validation experience.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $195,000 - $245,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. 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.