Concept and Architecture Engineering Contractor

About You and The Role 

We are kicking off a new, highly confidential product development effort on Zipline’s New Products team. This team includes individuals who architected and developed Zipline’s current systems from their earliest stages, taking ambitious ideas through the process of becoming real, operational products.

We are now embarking on another clean-sheet development effort that we believe has the potential to have a similar level of impact on the future success of the business.

At this earliest stage of the project, we want to bring in a very small number of exceptional external engineers, designers, builders, and creative problem-solvers to work directly alongside the core New Products team. The objective is to inject diverse technical perspectives into the clean-sheet design process, rapidly explore the solution space, challenge our assumptions, and identify unconventional approaches to unusually difficult problems.

This will take the form of an intensive, highly collaborative design sprint running September 28– October 2, 2026 at Zipline’s flight test facility in Half Moon Bay, California. We intend to host no more than two external participants per day, with each participant joining for approximately one to two days.

Holding the sessions at our flight test facility will give participants firsthand exposure to the systems, hardware, and operating environment that provide context for the problems we’re solving. Rather than working from a presentation or abstract problem statement, participants will be able to see how our systems work in practice, ask questions of the people who build and operate them, and use that context to inform their ideas.

What You'll Do

• Work directly with members of the New Products team on ambiguous, open-ended technical problems.
• Generate and evaluate concepts from first principles rather than simply iterating on existing solutions.
• Bring lessons, approaches, and intuition from difficult problems solved in other products and industries.
• Rapidly sketch, prototype, analyze, or otherwise communicate potential solutions.
• Challenge our assumptions and help identify portions of the design space we may have overlooked.
• Use direct exposure to Zipline's systems and operations to develop a grounded understanding of the problem.
• Operate effectively with very little structure and incomplete information.
• Maintain strict confidentiality regarding the project and information shared during the engagement.

What You'll Bring

• We are specifically looking for people with a demonstrated history of building difficult things and solving problems that initially appeared intractable.
• Specific industry experience is less important than technical creativity, strong engineering intuition, hands-on ability, intellectual range, and a track record of turning unconventional ideas into working hardware or systems. We're particularly interested in people who are comfortable entering an unfamiliar problem space, getting up to speed quickly, and approaching a problem without being constrained by how it has traditionally been solved.

What Else You Need To Know

This is a short-term, paid independent contractor engagement running September 28–October 2, 2026, with each contractor participating onsite for approximately one to two days from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm at Zipline’s flight test facility in Half Moon Bay, California. Compensation is $3,000–$6,000 per day, depending on scope and relevant experience. Travel and lodging are not covered; meals will be provided during onsite engagement days. Contractors are not eligible for Zipline employee benefits and must provide any required invoices and tax documentation. Because this engagement involves confidential product development, selected contractors must sign Zipline’s approved contractor and confidentiality agreements before receiving nonpublic project information or accessing restricted facilities, and must comply with applicable intellectual-property, information-security, facility-access, and health-and-safety requirements.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

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!

How To Apply 

We want to keep the application simple and focused on the work you've actually done. Please submit:

1. Resume or Updated LinkedIn Profile: A current resume or LinkedIn profile summarizing your experience and background.
2. Project portfolio: A portfolio highlighting projects, products, prototypes, experiments, or other work that you feel demonstrates why you'd be a great fit for this engagement. This does not need to be a polished design portfolio. We care much more about what you built, the problems you encountered, and how you approached solving them.
3. What are you most proud of? In your own words, tell us about something you've built, solved, accomplished, or contributed to that you're particularly proud of, and why it matters to you. We're less interested in polished prose than in understanding what you choose to highlight and how you think about your own work. Please write this yourself rather than using AI to draft it.