Senior/Staff Power Electronics Hardware Reliability Engineer

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 You and The Role Zipline is building autonomous aircraft and ground infrastructure that must operate safely and reliably across demanding environments, high utilization, and long service lives with minimal maintenance. As a Senior or Staff Electrical Hardware Reliability Engineer focused on power electronics, you will serve as the reliability technical lead for some of Zipline’s most critical high-power electrical systems. Your initial focus will be our drone charging systems, which convert AC grid power into multiple low-voltage DC outputs used to charge Zipline aircraft and power our docking station. Depending on your background and evolving program needs, your scope may also include the broader dock electrical system and aircraft power electronics, including power distribution, battery, busbars, and related assemblies. This role requires deep electrical engineering judgment. You will identify the dominant lifetime and failure risks in complex power-conversion hardware, determine how those risks should be evaluated, and influence the architecture and detailed design accordingly. You will apply Physics-of-Failure, Design-for-Reliability, accelerated testing, and hands-on failure analysis to understand degradation mechanisms such as thermomechanical fatigue, dielectric breakdown, insulation aging, capacitor degradation, interconnect fatigue, corrosion, and electrical or thermal overstress. You will work closely with design, test, systems, manufacturing, supplier quality, and operations teams. You will be expected not only to execute reliability activities, but also to provide independent technical leadership, challenge assumptions, and define what good power-electronics reliability engineering looks like at Zipline. What You'll Do Own the reliability strategy for high-voltage power electronics and power-conversion systems, beginning with Zipline’s grid-connected power converters. Identify and prioritize the dominant reliability risks for high voltage power electronics, considering electrical, thermal, mechanical, environmental, and operational stresses. Lead DFMEA efforts with cross-functional teams to identify early risks and drive mitigation. Evaluate power-electronics architectures, schematics, PCB layouts, component selections, packaging concepts, thermal-management approaches, insulation systems, connectors, and high-current interconnects from a reliability…