Senior RF Front-End Design Engineer

About this role

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 seeking a Senior RF Front-End Design Engineer to lead the architecture, design, integration, and validation of highly integrated multi-radio front-end systems across our autonomous aircraft and ground infrastructure.

You will own RF front-end architecture from early system definition through schematic design, hardware integration, validation, manufacturing, certification, and field deployment. You will design wireless platforms supporting technologies including 4G LTE , 5G NR , GNSS , Wi-Fi, ADS-B, UAT , Bluetooth, ISM radios, emerging Vehicle-to-Vehicle ( V2V ) communications, and future air-to-ground communication systems , all operating simultaneously within extremely space- and power-constrained platforms.

This role requires deep expertise in RF front-end architecture, multi-radio integration, and chip-down wireless solutions, with a strong understanding of RF coexistence, interference management, and receiver desense mitigation as critical elements of delivering robust wireless systems. You will collaborate closely with antenna, electrical, embedded software, systems, mechanical, flight test, manufacturing, reliability, certification, and cloud engineering teams to build the next generation of Zipline's wireless platforms.

What You'll Do

• Own RF front-end architecture, design, integration, validation, and production for Zipline aircraft, ground support infrastructure, and future autonomous logistics platforms.

• Develop highly integrated multi-radio architectures supporting LTE, 5G, GNSS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ADS-B, UAT, ISM radios, telemetry, command-and-control, and emerging V2V communication technologies.

• Define next-generation air-to-ground and vehicle-to-vehicle wireless architectures that enable scalable autonomous fleet operations.

• Evaluate and integrate chip-down wireless solutions, RF front-end modules, cellular modems, GNSS receivers, Wi-Fi SoCs, and future integrated radio platforms.

• Translate system-level communication, navigation, regulatory, and operational requirements into RF front-end specifications and verification plans.

• Design RF signal chains including power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, filters, duplexers, diplexers, multiplexers, RF switches, matching networks, and antenna interfaces.

• Design RF front-end architectures that enable reliable operation of multiple simultaneous wireless systems across airborne and ground platforms.

• Incorporate RF coexistence, interference management, isolation, and receiver desense mitigation into overall wireless architecture and front-end design.

• Analyze system-level RF interactions including blocking, intermodulation, harmonic interference, broadband noise coupling, passive intermodulation, and electromagnetic compatibility to ensure robust wireless performance.

• Develop antenna-sharing, diversity, MIMO, filtering, isolation, shielding, grounding, and frequency-planning strategies that maximize overall system performance.

• Perform RF system analysis including link budgets, cascade analysis, noise figure, linearity, dynamic range, sensitivity, and interference budgeting.

• Collaborate with antenna engineers to optimize antenna placement, installed performance, isolation, and end-to-end wireless system performance.

• Support schematic capture, PCB layout reviews, RF routing, stack-up definition, grounding, shielding, and design-for-manufacturing activities.

• Develop laboratory validation methods using vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, network emulators, OTA chambers, and conducted RF measurements.

• Plan and execute RF validation, coexistence testing, support desense characterization, conducted and over-the-air testing, environmental qualification, and production verification.

• Investigate RF performance issues using simulation, laboratory measurements, flight-test data, production data, and structured root-cause analysis.

• Support regulatory and carrier certification activities including FCC, CE, ISED, PTCRB, GCF, carrier acceptance, and international wireless certifications.

• Work closely with suppliers and manufacturing partners to establish RF specifications, production test methods, calibration procedures, and quality controls.

• Mentor engineers and help establish RF architecture standards, design methodologies, validation processes, and long-term wireles

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