The job, in the employer's words
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 is seeking a Fleet Commander (Remote Pilot in Command) to lead safe, compliant, and efficient flight operations from our Fleet Command facility in South San Francisco. In this onsite role, you will serve as the accountable RPIC for a large, highly autonomous UAS fleet, owning operational safety, mission throughput, regulatory compliance, and fleet performance.
This is a high-impact role at the intersection of aviation, autonomy, safety, and operations. Your real-time decisions will directly influence mission success, on-time delivery of critical payloads, and fleet uptime as Zipline scales its U.S. network and flight volume.
What You'll Do
- Serve as the accountable Remote Pilot in Command (RPIC) for all assigned missions, including preflight planning, crew briefings, launch and recovery decisions, anomaly response, and final mission disposition. Own the final safety call for multiple concurrent aircraft.
- Own shift-level operational performance by tracking metrics such as safety events, mission success, on-time delivery, deliveries per hour, and aircraft availability. Communicate risks, trends, and operational status to Site Leadership.
- Continuously monitor weather, aircraft health, telemetry, communications, and airspace status. Make timely go/no-go, diversion, and recovery decisions, and implement appropriate mitigations when conditions or system performance change.
- Detect, triage, and resolve operational issues, including hardware faults, autonomy degradations, communications loss, and fleet downtime. Coordinate with Maintenance, Engineering, and Site Leadership to restore service, reduce MTTR, and drive corrective actions.
- Execute and enforce operational policies, checklists, standard operating procedures, and FAA-authorized requirements. Maintain accurate shift logs, flight records, and incident reports to support audits, regulatory submissions, and safety investigations.
- Support operational readiness for new sites, product launches, process changes, and regulatory audits. Participate in safety investigations, corrective-action planning, and improvements that enhance safety, reliability, and throughput.
- Complete administrative responsibilities, recurrent training, proficiency checks, and qualification maintenance on schedule, while supporting the training and development of other site pilots.
What You'll Bring
- Current FAA Remote Pilot Certificate under Part 107.
- Ability to work onsite in South San Francisco, CA, and support rotating shifts that may include nights, weekends, holidays, and occasional on-call coverage. Typical shift length and rotation will be discussed during the interview.
- Ability to complete and maintain Zipline Fleet Commander (RPIC) qualification. Initial training is approximately two weeks at Zipline’s Charlotte training facility, with travel and training provided by the company.
- Prior operational ownership experience in UAS or manned aviation flight operations, flight dispatch, or another safety-critical operating environment. Experience with multi-aircraft operations, BVLOS, or airspace approvals is preferred. This role requires demonstrated responsibility for operational outcomes.
- Proven ability to make rapid, defensible go/no-go and emergency decisions in time-sensitive, safety-critical environments, with clear and concise radio and written communication under pressure.
- Strong technical troubleshooting skills, including the ability to interpret telemetry, basic avionics and ground-station fault indicators, and operational dashboards and KPIs. Ability to escalate appropriately to Maintenance and Engineering.
- Ability to complete and maintain required background checks and pre-employment drug and alcohol screening.
- Valid driver’s license and ability to travel approximately 10% of the time for training, site launches, or program support.
Location & other constraints
- On-site at Fleet Command facility, South San Francisco, CA. Zipline will provide required training and cover approved travel for that training.
What Else You Need To Know
Please note that:
This is a full-time position and the compensation range for this role is $34.00 - $45.00/ hour.
Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, 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.
Benefits mentioned
- Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, 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!
Requirements mentioned
- Zipline is seeking a Fleet Commander (Remote Pilot in Command) to lead safe, compliant, and efficient flight operations from our Fleet Command facility in South San Francisco. In this onsite role, you will serve as the accountable RPIC for a large, highly autonomous UAS fleet, owning operational safety, mission throughput, regulatory compliance, and fleet performance.
- This is a high-impact role at the intersection of aviation, autonomy, safety, and operations. Your real-time decisions will directly influence mission success, on-time delivery of critical payloads, and fleet uptime as Zipline scales its U.S. network and flight volume.
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