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.
Zipline’s Program Management team is responsible for ensuring that Zipline achieves our company goals on time and on budget. Our PMs are embedded across our 6 hardware teams and work directly with engineers of many disciplines to design, build, and test our drones and ground infrastructure. Program managers define their team’s priorities and drive execution of key milestones in a constantly changing environment.
What You'll Do
- Understand and mitigate technical and program risks to keep Zipline’s future programs on track. Drive decision making and trade off studies.
- Define program timelines, milestones and critical path.
- Manage and support cross-functional teams across electrical and mechanical engineering, design validation, and embedded software domains to build and execute a plan to develop new hardware
- Drive prototype and test activities to validate next generation hardware designs
- Report program updates to leadership
- Manage new infrastructure builds for our test campaigns and track hardware sample allocations
- Organize and facilitate meetings with cross-functional teams
- Work closely with cross-functional groups to track incoming parts and quality
- Manage upcoming hardware changes to meet company targets
- Must have at least completed the second year of your undergraduate studies or equivalent in Mechanical or Mechatronics Engineering. Masters and PhD students are also eligible.
- Strong technical background
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to explain challenges and solutions to fellow engineers and non-engineers alike.
- Enthusiasm for collaborating in a fast paced and highly cross-functional environment
- Ability to pick up technical concepts rapidly
- Ability to drive clarity amidst chaos and ambiguity
- Extreme ownership and a bias for action
- Must be eligible to work in the US
- Demonstrated skill in aligning priorities, coordinating timelines, and leading complex scope, resource, and schedule trades
- Must be able to work in person at Zipline’s South San Francisco office 5 days a week
Our internships are full-time positions, in-person at our South San Francisco or Dallas office. We will host our Summer 2027 interns from May/June - August/September.
Candidates are limited to three (3) applications within a 30-day period.
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!
Zipline is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your point of contact at Zipline know if you require any accommodations throughout your interview process.
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.
Skills Required
- At least completed the second year of undergraduate studies or equivalent in Mechanical or Mechatronics Engineering
- Strong technical background
- Excellent communication skills, including explaining technical challenges and solutions to engineers and non-engineers
- Ability to collaborate in a fast-paced, highly cross-functional environment
- Ability to rapidly learn technical concepts
- Ability to create clarity amid ambiguity and chaos
- Extreme ownership and bias for action
- Must be eligible to work in the United States
- Demonstrated ability to align priorities, coordinate timelines, and lead complex scope, resource, and schedule tradeoffs
- Ability to work in person at the South San Francisco office five days per week
- Masters and PhD students are eligible
Zipline Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Zipline and has not been reviewed or approved by Zipline.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is consistently described as comprehensive and high quality, with multiple plan choices, low out‑of‑pocket costs, and additions like HRA, One Medical, and fertility support.
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Parental & Family Support — Parental and family leave is highlighted as generous and meaningfully used, reinforcing support for major life events.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off, sick days, and holidays are portrayed as solid and broadly available, contributing to overall benefits depth.
Zipline Insights
What We Do
Zipline is the world's largest autonomous delivery network and is powered entirely by fixed-wing drones. Our fleet circles the equivalent distance of the equator every 2.5 days, and we have shipped hundreds of thousands of critical medical products across Rwanda, Ghana, and now beginning in the United States.
Why Work With Us
Zipline is the perfect intersection of super cutting-edge tech, deep social mission, and extremely compelling business case. Our small, scrappy, customer-obsessed, humble, and mission-driven team has set the bar for what is possible in the drone logistics industry globally, and has designed some incredibly elegant technology in the process.
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