Flight Test Site Lead

Skills this role screens for

About the role

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

Zipline’s flight test facility turns new aircraft capabilities into safe, repeatable operations. As Site Lead, you will run the day-to-day facility operation and lead the Flight Test Operator, Ground Test, and Visual Observer teams as aircraft move from engineering development into flight test.

You will own site readiness, execution, staffing, safety, and team performance. You will make site-level readiness, staffing, and stop-work decisions; escalate test-plan changes and unresolved safety, engineering, or program tradeoffs. Success is a safe, ready site that executes planned test work with improving throughput, repeatability, and reliability; safety governs tradeoffs.

The work

What You'll Do

• Set daily site priorities, lead operational briefings and readiness checks, and direct safe execution of flight and ground test activities.
• Make site-level readiness, staffing allocation, and stop-work decisions; escalate test-plan changes and unresolved safety, engineering, or program tradeoffs.
• Manage and develop Flight Test Operators, Ground Test personnel, and Visual Observers through hiring, onboarding, coaching, feedback, and performance management.
• Coordinate facilities, equipment, layout, and operational needs with internal partners and vendors to maintain a ready flight test site.
• Partner with engineering, safety, maintenance, and manufacturing to plan and execute complex test campaigns.
• Track safety, readiness, throughput, repeatability, and reliability metrics to improve procedures, tooling, workflows, and resource allocation.
• Represent Flight Test Operations during facility visits, explaining Zipline’s aircraft, test approach, and operating practices to technical and non-technical audiences.

Also

What You'll Bring

What Else You Need To Know

The starting salary for this role is $107,000 - $145,000. 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!

Voluntary Self-Identification

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.

• Experience leading teams responsible for daily execution in aviation, aerospace, drone operations, robotics, military operations, or another safety-critical operational environment.
• Experience directing operational work and making sound decisions under pressure when safety, readiness, and execution priorities compete.
• Demonstrated people leadership, including coaching, mentoring, performance feedback, and performance management.
• Ability to balance daily execution with staffing, resource allocation, and longer-term operational planning.
• Proven ability to improve processes and deliver cross-functional operational initiatives with engineering or technical partners.
• Clear written and verbal communication for operational coordination, escalation, and stakeholder communication.
• Experience in flight test, experimental flight operations, prototype development, autonomous aircraft, robotic systems, facility development, or aviation and drone operations; FAA Part 107 or pilot certification is a plus.