Sr. Director Maintenance Operations

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

4d•$200,000 - $350,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Zipline is looking for a Senior Director of MX Operations to build the maintenance operating system that lets Zipline scale one of the most complex real-world logistics networks in the world. This role reports into Operations leadership and owns the execution muscle of Maintenance Operations across our US metros and future expansion sites. The work is hands-on, operationally intense, and highly cross-functional. This is not a back-office maintenance role. Zipline is moving from proving the system works to scaling it metro by metro. That means the Senior Director of MX Operations must be able to run today with urgency while building the process, leadership bench, metrics, and culture that can support much higher volume, more sites, longer operating hours, and increasingly complex regulatory and technical requirements.

Requirements

Led maintenance, fleet, field service, aviation, robotics, autonomy, manufacturing operations, or similarly high-complexity technical operations at meaningful scale.
Managed managers and built strong frontline leadership teams. Know how to set expectations, inspect execution, coach leaders, and raise the performance bar without creating bureaucracy.
Strong in operational systems: work-order discipline, shift handoffs, tooling control, spares planning, scheduled maintenance, unscheduled maintenance, technician assignment, escalation paths, and return-to-service processes.
Comfortable in regulated or safety-critical environments. Aviation maintenance experience, Part 135/145 familiarity, autonomous systems experience, or other high-reliability operating experience is especially helpful.
Can read operational data and turn it into action. Fluent in metrics like fleet availability, downtime, SLA breach rate, work-order aging, repeat failure modes, technician productivity, scheduled-maintenance compliance, parts blockers, and cost per delivery.
Technical enough to work credibly with engineers and technicians, but practical enough to know that the job is not done until the asset is back in operations with clean records and a verified fix.
Built standard work before: SOPs, handoff packets, training paths, maintenance playbooks, tool catalogs, escalation rules, dashboards, and management routines that people actually use.
Strong judgment under pressure. When an aircraft is grounded, a metro is short on assets, a work order is stale, parts are missing, or multiple teams are pointing at each other, can create clarity quickly and move the system forward.
Willing to be in the field. This role will require regular travel to Zipline sites and active time with maintenance teams, not just leadership meetings from HQ.
Very high standards for culture. Zipline needs leaders who are direct, low-ego, high-ownership, safety-minded, and willing to lead from the front.

Responsibilities

Own Maintenance Operations as a scaled operating function: aircraft, droid, dock, charger, zipping point, tooling, scheduled maintenance, unscheduled maintenance, mobile maintenance, hub-to-ops handoffs, and return-to-service execution.
Build a maintenance system that is measured, fast, disciplined, and trusted. That includes clear ownership for every grounded asset, tight control of work orders, clean technician assignment, strong shift handoffs, useful dashboards, and a culture where overdue or unstarted work is surfaced quickly and driven to closure.
Lead regional and hub maintenance leaders across active metros, starting with the current US operating footprint and expanding into new metros as Zipline grows. Set the standard for technician authority, professional culture, safety, documentation, tool control, spares discipline, and execution quality.
Partner tightly with Service Engineering, Flight Operations, Airworthiness, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Product, Finance, Launch, and Field Operations. Ensure maintenance is never an ambiguous handoff point. When an asset is down, there should be one owner, one plan, one ETA, and one clear path to return to service.
Create and run the maintenance operating cadence: daily fleet health review, hard-deck escalation, scheduled maintenance planning, unscheduled maintenance triage, parts and tooling readiness, staffing and shift coverage, and performance management across leaders and technicians.
Improve the economics of maintenance. Reduce avoidable downtime, increase flights per maintenance grounding, improve work-order throughput, make scheduled maintenance predictable, use mobile maintenance intelligently, improve parts availability, and connect maintenance performance to cost per delivery and fleet availability.
Help prepare Zipline for the next phase of scale: EV3 launch readiness, additional metros, longer operating windows, higher delivery volume, new maintenance points, new charging and docking infrastructure, and eventual future platforms. Expect to spend meaningful time in the field, especially when a site or process is not yet working.