Zipline
Senior/Staff Systems Modeling Engineer, Electric Propulsion
$180K–$255K
South San Francisco, California, USA +1 · Staff · Full-time · Posted Sep 5, 2026
- Location
- South San Francisco, California, USA
South San Francisco, California, United States - Experience
- 8+ years of industry experience.
- Education
- Preferred: M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
About the job
Leads development, validation, and deployment of electric-propulsion models to guide aircraft design, performance, and fleet operations.
What you'll do
- Own the propulsion modeling roadmap and develop reusable physics-based modeling frameworks across aircraft programs.
- Lead propulsion trade studies and experimental characterization, including test plans, instrumentation, and model validation.
- Use laboratory and flight data to improve model accuracy and inform aircraft and fleet-level engineering decisions.
What they ask for
- 8+ years of industry experience developing and validating physics-based models for electric powertrains, aerospace systems, electric vehicles, robotics, or other complex electro-mechanical systems.
- Strong heat-transfer fundamentals and experience building, parameterizing, and validating lumped-parameter thermal networks for electric machines or power electronics.
- Proficiency in MATLAB, Python, Julia, Rust, or similar languages, with experience developing modular, object-oriented engineering code and reusable modeling frameworks.
- Solid foundation in numerical methods, optimization, controls, and engineering model validation; ability and willingness to work onsite.
Nice to have
- M.S. or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- Familiarity with motor and inverter loss mechanisms; experience with high-fidelity simulation tools such as ANSYS Motor-CAD, ANSYS Maxwell, JMAG, COMSOL, or ANSYS Icepak.
Pay
$180,000 - $255,000 USD base salary
Tools
MATLAB, Python, Julia, Rust, ANSYS Motor-CAD, ANSYS Maxwell, JMAG, COMSOL
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative