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.
Zipline is building the charging-point and partner network that brings new delivery capacity online. As a Launch Manager, you will own deployments in assigned markets from approval through first delivery and transition to stable operations.
This is hands-on launch ownership, not coordination. You will run the integrated launch plan, drive readiness decisions and escalations across teams, and work in the field to make launches safe and repeatable. Success means completing readiness gates, enabling first delivery, and handing field teams an operation they can run and scale.
What You'll Do- Own integrated launch plans and critical paths for charging locations and partner sites from approval through first delivery.
- Build the systems, tools, operating rhythms, and readiness mechanisms that make launches safe, fast, repeatable, and scalable.
- Lead site-level readiness; identify blockers, clarify owners, drive decisions, and escalate, schedule, regulatory, or partner tradeoffs that require functional alignment.
- Coordinate infrastructure, permitting, flight operations, maintenance, regulatory, commercial, community engagement, and partner workstreams against launch milestones.
- Establish readiness gates, playbooks, dashboards, and operating rhythms that make deployments repeatable across metros, partners, and future verticals.
- Track schedule, regulatory status, partner readiness, blockers, and operational handoff health; provide clear visibility to stakeholders.
- Lead retrospectives using field results and operational data to remove systemic bottlenecks and improve future launches.
- Drive transition to stable operations, ensuring each site is practical for field teams, measurable, and prepared to scale.
- 6+ years of experience in operations, deployment, infrastructure rollout, logistics, marketplace expansion, or physical-network scaling.
- A record of owning complex, cross-functional launches or rollouts through go-live in real operating environments.
- Experience building integrated plans across multiple teams and resolving dependencies affecting schedule, readiness, and execution.
- Sound field judgment to distinguish documented readiness from conditions that support a safe, successful launch.
- Ability to move between executive-level tradeoffs and site-level details, readiness checklists, and partner coordination.
- Comfort working through ambiguity, time pressure, and changing field conditions while maintaining structure and follow-through.
- Frequent travel to cities throughout the U.S. to directly support charging-location and partner-site launches; experience with physical infrastructure, logistics networks, aviation, robotics, autonomous systems, permitting, or construction is valued.
The starting cash range for this role is $140,000-180,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. 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.
Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.
We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!
For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
Zipline South San Francisco, California, USA Office
South San Francisco, CA, United States
Zipline Half Moon Bay, California, USA Office
Half Moon Bay, United States
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