Technical Program Manager

Zipline•Los Angeles, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, aiming to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine, and essential goods. They design, build, and operate an autonomous logistics system, making millions of deliveries globally. The company operates on four continents and is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food. Zipline is seeking practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth, motivated by building systems with a direct, meaningful impact. This role focuses on Zipline's Nigeria deployments, which represent one of their most important and ambitious programs. The Technical Program Manager will lead the end-to-end execution of these deployments, owning the integrated deployment plan, operating cadence, tools, and processes. The goal is to turn a complex portfolio of launches into predictable, repeatable execution by identifying risks, driving accountability, resolving cross-functional issues, and ensuring safe and successful site launches. The ideal candidate is energized by bringing order to complexity, leading high-stakes programs, and building systems that deliver real-world impact.

Requirements

6+ years leading complex technical, operational, infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, deployment, or supply chain programs.
Proven track record managing large cross-functional programs with multiple organizations and long-lead dependencies, with accountability for schedule, quality, and cost.
Experience launching complex physical infrastructure or real-world operational systems.
Strong program management fundamentals, including integrated planning, critical-path management, risk mitigation, dependency management, and escalation frameworks.
Demonstrated ability to build operating systems such as integrated schedules, stage gates, readiness criteria, playbooks, and program dashboards.
Hands-on experience with program and scheduling tools (e.g., Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, Primavera, Jira, Airtable), AI tools, and building dashboards that track KPIs.
Clear, concise communicator who can simplify technical complexity and coordinate large cross-functional teams without direct authority.
Ability to work effectively across global, cross-cultural teams and translate between on-the-ground realities and global requirements.
Prior ownership of integrated deployment schedules spanning engineering, procurement or manufacturing, shipping and logistics, and regulatory activities.
Demonstrated history of improving schedule predictability, launch readiness, deployment cost, or execution quality.
Experience personally driving complex programs through execution—not only creating plans or facilitating status meetings.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Nigeria or a comparable operating environment is highly preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the Nigeria deployment Operating system, including the master deployment plan across multiple concurrent distribution center launches.
Build and maintain integrated schedules connecting construction, procurement, shipping, hardware commissioning, regulatory approvals, software readiness, operations readiness, hiring, training, and launch execution.
Maintain a single source of truth for program health, site readiness, key dependencies, and critical-path milestones.
Continuously improve the deployment operating model to make Nigeria launches faster, more predictable, higher quality, and more cost-effective.
Lead execution across Engineering, Supply Chain, Construction, Logistics, Regulatory, Operations, Finance, and Nigeria country teams.
Identify risks by understanding long-term dependencies across workstreams and anticipating future impacts.
Ensure every workstream has clear ownership, accountability, and escalation paths.
Partner closely with Nigeria leadership to align deployments with customer commitments and country priorities.
Serve as the central coordination point during commissioning and launch windows to rapidly resolve issues threatening launch.
Develop repeatable planning tools, stage gates, dashboards, templates, playbooks, and readiness checklists for global deployment standards.
Establish metrics for schedule performance, launch readiness, execution quality, and deployment cost.
Raise the execution standard by building planning processes, operating rhythms, and decision-making mechanisms.
Capture lessons from every launch and translate them into improvements for future Nigeria and global deployments.
Run weekly program reviews, executive status updates, cross-functional risk reviews, launch readiness reviews, and post-launch retrospectives.
Provide leaders with concise, decision-oriented reporting on priorities, risks, tradeoffs, and actions.
Drive timely decisions when priorities compete, assumptions change, or plans fall behind.