Technical Program Manager - Ground System… at Zipline · South…

About Zipline

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.

About You and the Role

The Deployment, Construction, and Service Operations team has the holistic responsibility for transforming bare ground into fully operational Zipline sites. This scope spans the entire site lifecycle, encompassing design engineering, application and project engineering, construction management, site superintendents, and boots-on-the-ground technicians for installation and service.

As the Technical Program Manager for Deployment, Construction, and Service Operations, you will drive the successful, scalable, and efficient rollout of Zipline’s global infrastructure. You will work across the entire cross-functional team—from design to field operations—to ensure that our holistic teams' schedules, roadmaps, tactical execution, and strategic goals are clear, crisp, and in precise alignment with the broader organization's objectives.

This role sits at the intersection of process definition, systems alignment, and execution at scale. You will help teams navigate complex cross-disciplinary decisions, coordinate the end-to-end site lifecycle, and ensure that our field teams have the process and technical clarity needed to deploy and maintain our infrastructure successfully worldwide.

If you enjoy being close to the physical build-out and on the front lines of deployment, working alongside engineers, construction managers, and service technicians to bring complex global systems to life, then this role will be a great fit.

We value people who take ownership of outcomes, not just responsibilities; you’ll be identifying systemic bottlenecks early, driving clarity for complex decisions, and ensuring work gets completed even when challenges fall outside traditional role boundaries.

On any given week, you might facilitate a cross-team roadmap planning session, coordinate the rollout of a new site deployment process, or work with field teams to ensure a critical service operation is executed efficiently.

This role focuses on driving clarity from ambiguity as Zipline scales, acting as the strategic architect for roadmaps that ensure the physical network scales predictably, efficiently, and reliably. The individual will navigate multiple parallel, multi-disciplinary projects across diverse domains, including global site infrastructure rollouts and continuous service improvements. You will join the organization responsible for ensuring we can rapidly and reliably transform design plans into autonomous, operational delivery sites worldwide. This position involves taking ownership of outcomes, resolving process and technical risks across the site lifecycle, and implementing foundational changes to how we deploy, build, and service our global infrastructure.

What You'll Do

• Strategic Program Leadership: Transform ambiguous goals into actionable, milestone-driven roadmaps, owning the "0 to 1" trajectory for poorly defined programs. Align Design, Engineering, and Service Operations to drive complex infrastructure programs from concept through real-world deployment.
• Deployment and Construction Execution: Coordinate all aspects of prototypes, builds, and infrastructure deployments. Work across structural, electrical, manufacturing, and software domains to ensure designs translate successfully into real-world systems, capturing lessons learned for continuous improvement.
• System-Level Technical Guidance: Facilitate technical discussions, design reviews, and trade studies to help engineering teams converge on effective solutions. Guide system-level decisions across all technical domains to ensure design-to-build success.
• Stakeholder & Risk Management: Drive alignment across cross-functional leadership (Real Estate, Engineering, Construction, and Maintenance). Source and develop relationships with outside organizations, including jurisdictions, utilities, and contractors. Proactively quantify and mitigate pre-construction, construction, and operational risks, balancing urgency with cost and impact.
• Operational Excellence & Feedback Loops: Develop and maintain resourcing plans for parallel projects, proactively identifying dependencies and bottlenecks. Establish mechanisms for Service Operations to feed field data back to Design, ensuring the next generation of infrastructure is designed for deployability and reliability.
• Clarity and Process Improvement: Develop lightweight tools, documentation, and operational processes (e.g., decision logs, build playbooks) to help teams move faster and operate with clarity. Drive clear communication of program status, risks, and decisions across all stakeholders.

What You’ll Bring

• Experience & Mindset:
  • 6–10+ years as a Technical Program Manager (TPM) or Program Manager, delivering multi-disciplinary hardware projects.
  • Experience with complex hardware systems (aerospace, robotics, energy, infrastructure, etc.).
  • Operational intuition; proven success with "0 to 1" transitions and scaling products from prototype to global deployment.
  • Highly execution-oriented mindset; owns outcomes and follows through relentlessly.
  • Enthusiasm for working closely with engineers, technicians, and deployment teams on complex hardware systems.
• Technical & Program Skills:
  • Proven ability to build strategic roadmaps (e.g., 5-year operating plans).
  • Strong systems thinking; able to dive into unfamiliar technical domains to guide decisions.
  • Proficient in project management tools (Jira, MS Project, Smartsheet) for tracking scope, schedule, and budget.
  • Familiarity with Construction and Service Operations is a plus.
  • Strong systems thinking; ability to dive into unfamiliar technical domains to understand tradeoffs, guide decisions, and unblock teams.
  • Experience improving team effectiveness via documentation, decision tracking, or process improvements.
• Communication & Leadership:
  • Exceptional communication; uses passive and active influence to drive positive change.
  • Demonstrated ability to coordinate cross-functional engineering teams and drive complex technical programs in fast-paced environments.
  • Strong facilitation skills to guide technical discussions and align diverse teams.
  • Proven ability to drive complex cross-team deliveries with clear prioritization, sequencing, and risk management.
  • Excellent communication and ability to influence diverse technical stakeholders.
  • Analytical, data-driven approach; comfortable defining and improving key metrics (build times, data latency, environment reliability/availability).
  • Adaptability and resilience; experience introducing and scaling new processes/platforms.
  • Influence Without Authority: Exceptional communication skills; uses passive/active influence to drive change in challenging situations.
  • Highly execution-oriented; takes ownership, follows through relentlessly, and ensures details are managed.

What Else You Need To Know

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!