Quality & Manufacturing Intern (Summer 2026)

About Zipline

Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building the first instant logistics system that serves all humans equally. Leveraging expertise in robotics and autonomy, Zipline designs, builds, and operates a fleet of cutting edge, autonomous delivery drones. We serve tens of millions of people around the world.

Joining Zipline’s Emerging Talent program as an intern is an opportunity to contribute to our promise of building a system that provides equitable access to critical healthcare supplies for millions of people. We believe that internships are more than just opportunities to learn by watching or doing low level tasks. We expect our interns to take on meaningful work that actively contributes to moving Zipline’s mission forward, while learning real-world skills that will serve them in their careers for the long term. 

Join us, and build the future of logistics with the best humans around!

About the Quality & Manufacturing Team

At Zipline, the Quality and Manufacturing team is essential to delivering safe, reliable, and scalable products that power our global operations. The team is made up of two key disciplines: Advanced Manufacturing Engineering (AME) and Manufacturing Quality Engineering (MQE).

Together, they drive excellence across the entire product lifecycle — from early design and prototyping to high-volume production and field performance. AME ensures our manufacturing processes are innovative, efficient, and scalable, while MQE safeguards product integrity and compliance through rigorous quality standards and continuous improvement.

This team plays a mission-critical role in Zipline’s success by ensuring that every product we build can perform flawlessly in the real world — whether it’s delivering life-saving medical supplies or supporting our expanding logistics network. Their work directly enables Zipline’s ability to scale globally, operate with precision, and fulfill our promise of fast, reliable service to the communities we serve.

About the Role

As an AME Intern, you will be focused on maintaining assembly lines & designing equipment for Zipline’s Top Level Assemblies (TLAs) that will be manufactured at Zipline's Final Assembly and End of Line Testing. This involves working with internal & external cross-functional stakeholders on design for manufacturing & assembly, assembly process and equipment design, assembly line commissioning, validation & continuous improvement to ensure Zipline can continue to serve its customers with better operational efficiency.

As an MQE Intern, you will be focused on the quality and reliability of Zipline’s in-house manufacturing. This involves tracking yield performance, performing root cause analysis and corrective action implementation on assembly and functional test failures, and helping to build a world class manufacturing organization by implementing innovative processes to improve performance during manufacturing and in the field.

What You'll Do

As an AME Intern, you will:

• Dfx Discussion: Assist Design for X conversation with internal & external stakeholders for Zipline TLAs and sub-assemblies.
• Assembly Line Management: Assist planning, budgeting, design, procurement, commissioning & validation of Assembly Lines and associated equipment at Zipline for Product Validation Builds and at Zipline TLA CMs for Mass Production.
• Capacity Model Management: Conduct time studies for the various assemblies and maintain the Manufacturing Capacity Model 
• Process Documentation: Develop & maintain Process Documentation (Manufacturing Process Flow, Process FMEA, Work Instructions, Setup Checklists, Training Plans, etc.) throughout the life of a program.
• Fixture Design & Automation: Design fixtures for assembly & inspection and propose automation strategies as needed for robust manufacturing. 
• Operator Training: Assist in training operators to run the assembly line and provide technical support for plant operations. 
• Technical Support: Support root cause analysis & corrective actions activities to troubleshoot production problems as they occur.
• Performance Tracking: Establish & monitor KPIs of the assembly line performance such as first-pass yield, cost of poor quality, on-time delivery, etc. Generating & reviewing matrices regularly. 
• Continuous Improvement: Assist in Continuous Improvement (CI) Projects that seek to improve the performance of the line, reducing