Industrial Engineer

About the Role

As an Industrial Engineer on the Manufacturing Engineering team, you will design the factory layouts, work methods, and capacity models that enable Zipline to scale production reliably.

You will connect demand, labor, equipment, space, and capital investment through time studies, standard work, line balancing, and production-system design. Working directly on the factory floor, you will turn observations and production data into practical changes to station loading, operator movement, layouts, and manufacturing capacity.

Your work will help the team determine how much we can build, where the constraints are, and which investments in people, equipment, automation, or space will support the next stage of production.

What You'll Do

• Own factory performance and production-system design, connecting individual processes into an efficient end-to-end system.
• Improve factory layouts, workstations, operator movement, and material presentation.
• Lead time studies, define standard work and labor models, and balance station loading against takt time.
• Build capacity and capital-investment scenarios for labor, equipment, tooling, shifts, floor space, and future demand.
• Identify current and future bottlenecks and implement improvements in throughput, utilization, cycle time, labor efficiency, and cost.
• Define WIP, buffer, queue, and rework strategies that protect output while reducing inventory and lead time.
• Partner with Manufacturing, Production, Supply Chain, and Material Planning on line architecture, lineside availability, and replenishment.
• Develop factory KPIs, decision tools, make-versus-buy analyses, and investment cases; carry improvements through implementation.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 2+ years of experience in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations engineering, production systems, or a comparable environment.
• Strong understanding of production system design, capacity planning, line balancing, takt time, cycle-time analysis, standard work, and manufacturing flow.
• Demonstrated experience performing time studies and translating observations into labor and capacity models.
• Experience designing or improving manufacturing layouts and material-flow systems.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn imperfect production data into clear engineering and business decisions.
• Experience identifying manufacturing constraints and driving improvements in throughput, productivity, utilization, lead time, or cost.
• Ability to build financial and operational models that support CapEx, automation, make/buy, and factory-scaling decisions.
• Strong spreadsheet and data-analysis skills; comfort working with manufacturing data from ERP, MES, labor-tracking, and production systems.
• Ability to work directly on the factory floor, understand how production actually operates, and collaborate effectively with technicians, manufacturing engineers, production leaders, quality engineers, supply chain, and design engineering.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to convert complex analysis into simple recommendations and executable plans.
• A high degree of ownership. You are comfortable identifying an ambiguous factory-level problem, defining what needs to be measured, developing a solution, and driving it through implementation.

Nice to Have

• 5–7 years of relevant experience preferred.
• Experience scaling a complex electromechanical product from NPI or low-rate production into higher-volume manufacturing.
• Experience with discrete-event simulation, optimization, operations research, or other production-system modeling techniques.
• Experience with SQL, Python, BI tools, or other methods for analyzing large manufacturing datasets.
• Experience with ERP and MES platforms and developing manufacturing dashboards or operational reporting systems.
• Experience developing business cases for automation or major manufacturing equipment.
• Experience with Lean manufacturing concepts, Theory of Constraints, PFMEA, value-stream mapping, or structured continuous-improvement methodologies.
• Experience supporting factory expansions, new production lines, or greenfield manufacturing operations.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $104,000 - $170,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation.

The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.