Zipline
Operations Engineer
$104K–$170K
South San Francisco, California, USA +1 · Full-time · Posted Oct 29, 2026
- Location
- South San Francisco, California, USA
South San Francisco, California, United States - Experience
- 3+ years required; 5–7 years of relevant experience is nice to have.
- Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
About the job
Plans and improves factory capacity, production systems, and operating routines to help manufacturing scale output while improving throughput, utilization, lead time, and cost.
What you'll do
- Build capacity and capital-investment scenarios; identify bottlenecks and implement production improvements.
- Lead time studies, standard-work definition, labor modeling, and line balancing; improve factory layouts and material flow.
- Develop factory KPIs, decision tools, make-versus-buy analyses, and investment cases, carrying improvements through implementation.
What they ask for
- Bachelor’s degree in a stated engineering, operations research, systems engineering, or related technical field.
- 3+ years in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
- Experience with time studies, labor and capacity models, line balancing, takt time, standard work, factory layouts, and material flow.
- Strong spreadsheet and analytical skills; ability to build operational and financial models for capital investment, automation, make-versus-buy, and factory scaling.
Nice to have
- Experience scaling complex electromechanical products, expanding factories, or launching production lines.
- Familiarity with simulation, optimization, SQL, Python, BI tools, manufacturing dashboards, ERP/MES platforms, Lean manufacturing, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, or value-stream mapping.
Pay
$104,000 - $170,000 USD starting cash range (base salary); equity compensation, bonuses, and sales incentives may also be included, but no amounts are stated.
Tools
ERP, MES, SQL, Python, BI tools
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative