Technical Program Manager - Ground System Deployments, Construction and Service Operations

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

14h•Onsite

About The Position

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine, and essential goods anytime, anywhere. They design, build, and operate a global autonomous logistics system, completing millions of deliveries across four continents, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. Zipline's system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and provides a teleportation service that decarbonizes delivery, decreases road congestion, and reduces fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while offering equitable access and building a more resilient global supply chain. The company seeks practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth, motivated by building systems with a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and scaling the future of logistics. The Deployment, Construction, and Service Operations team is holistically responsible for transforming bare ground into fully operational Zipline sites, 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 this team, you will drive the successful, scalable, and efficient rollout of Zipline’s global infrastructure. This role involves working across the entire cross-functional team—from design to field operations—to ensure that schedules, roadmaps, tactical execution, and strategic goals are clear, crisp, and in precise alignment with the broader organization's objectives. Sitting 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 field teams have the process and technical clarity needed to deploy and maintain infrastructure successfully worldwide. This position is ideal for individuals who 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. You will take ownership of outcomes, identify systemic bottlenecks early, drive clarity for complex decisions, and ensure work gets completed even when challenges fall outside traditional role boundaries. 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, joining the organization responsible for rapidly and reliably transforming 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 Zipline deploys, builds, and services its global infrastructure.

Requirements

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.
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.
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.
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.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Construction and Service Operations is a plus.

Responsibilities

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.

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