Back to jobs
New

Fleet Configuration & Change Manager

South San Francisco, California, USA

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 

Are you passionate about pioneering the deployment of real-world robotics? Ensuring that Zipline continues to push the envelope of innovation by rapidly deploying, learning, and iterating on autonomous aircraft? Do you have a supreme attention to detail, with a penchant for efficient process design and management? The Fleet Configuration & Change Manager sits at the intersection of hardware and business operations: ensuring Zipline’s operational fleet remains process-capable that engineering innovations get deployed to the field in a manner that optimizes the impact to the business. 

This is a cross-functional role that interfaces with hardware engineering, reliability, maintenance operations, and business strategy. You will be responsible for strategically planning the makeup of the autonomous aircraft fleet, and evaluating tradeoffs for the business with respect to hardware releases, retrofit campaigns, and fleet allocation. You will manage the variations across the fleet and ensure that new hardware configurations are deployed in a controlled and organized manner. 

What You'll Do 

The Fleet Configuration & Change manager determines which existing  assets in the P2 Fleet (ziplines, pods, docks, and dropboxes) should receive hardware upgrades, which should not, the appropriate timescales for each. and how these configurations should be allocated across sites, partners, and business needs. 

  • Hardware change evaluation:
    • Review proposed hardware changes to Zipline’s fleet prior to manufacturing cut-in for feasibility and operational process readiness
    • Evaluate the costs & benefits of deploying proposed hardware changes to the operating fleet; define fleet allocation plans and retrofit campaigns with these insights
  • Operational readiness management: 
    • Project-manage the operations team’s review of new hardware adjustments – the Commercial Operations Readiness Review - to confirm field-readiness; channel negative feedback to the responsible engineers.
    • Build the system to manage Operations’ review of all incoming tickets / concepts from Engineering; program manage the timely feedback and decision on proposals. 
    • Program-manage the fixtures and tools and testers required to execute and support a hardware change and ensure clear ownership of any changes required to the tooling, parts, and workflows of operations.
  • Retrofit execution: Plan and sequence retrofits as necessary; ensure readiness for parts supply, labor resourcing and training, and progress tracking. 
  • Fleet configuration management: Track and manage asset configuration allocations across commercial and partner locations. 

What You'll Bring

Necessary qualifications

  • Several years leading complex hardware change deployment, fleet configuration, maintenance planning, NPI, sustaining engineering, or technical operations programs.
  • Working knowledge of engineering change control: BOMs, part and revision control, effectivity, ECOs, compatibility, production cut-ins, and retrofit embodiment.
  • Strong quantitative judgment: lifecycle cost, capacity impact, reliability benefit, maintenance burden, inventory exposure, and scenario analysis.
  • Track record of success building and implementing new operating processes: intake, prioritization, decision gates, reviews, communications, and escalation paths.
  • Exceptional data and record discipline. In this role, configuration accuracy is operationally and potentially regulatorily consequential.
  • Clear written and verbal communication with both engineers and business leaders.
  • Willingness and ability to spend time with field technicians, operators, production teams, and deployed sites to deeply understand fleet allocation impacts. 

Desired qualifications

  • Familiarity with reliability engineering, maintainability, spares planning, technical publications, training readiness, and regulatory change incorporation.
  • SQL, spreadsheet modeling, BI, or other analytical skills sufficient to independently evaluate fleet scenarios.

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!

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.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:
A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.
A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.
An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.