Fleet Commander / RPIC

About the role

The Fleet Commander (RPIC) on Zipline's Flight Operations team is responsible for overseeing the operation of a large, highly autonomous BVLOS aircraft fleet that delivers critical payloads. This role involves managing preflight planning, launch and recovery decisions, in-flight monitoring, and final mission disposition for multiple concurrent aircraft. The role also requires monitoring weather, system health, telemetry, and airspace status continuously, making immediate go/no-go and diversion decisions, and implementing mitigations for anomalies.

Responsibilities

• Act as Responsible Person in Charge (RPIC) for all assigned sorties: own preflight planning, launch and recovery decisions, in-flight monitoring, and final mission disposition for multiple concurrent aircraft.
• Execute high-volume commercial flight operations to meet daily launch and delivery targets while maintaining required safety margins and regulatory permissions.
• Maintain operational compliance: follow and enforce documented policies, standard operating procedures, and FAA-authorized constraints; prepare for and support audits or regulatory inquiries.
• Own operational metrics for your shift: track and drive KPIs such as on-time delivery rate, mission success rate, and aircraft availability; escalate trends that threaten safety or throughput.
• Complete administrative tasks, training, and qualification maintenance on schedule; provide accurate shift logs and incident reports.
• Interface cross-functionally with maintenance/tech ops, engineering, safety & compliance, and site leadership to implement process or system changes that improve safety and throughput.

Requirements

• FAA-issued Part 107 remote pilot certificate and completion of Zipline Fleet Commander (RPIC) training (training provided).
• Valid driver’s license.
• Proven operational experience: prior UAS or manned flight operations experience with direct RPIC or PIC responsibility and demonstrated decision authority during abnormal and emergency situations.

Qualifications

• Comfort owning KPIs and operating in an environment measured by flight volume, uptime, and incident metrics; accountable for maintaining safety-critical outcomes under time pressure.
• Ability to read telemetry and basic system diagnostics, perform structured troubleshooting, and communicate findings clearly to engineering and maintenance partners.
• Logistics and availability: this is an on-site role. Must be willing to work some nights and weekends and travel 10% (training and occasional site launches).