Senior Staff / Manager - Ground Systems Design Execution

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.

About This Role

Zipline is looking for a Sr Staff Engineer or Engineering Manager to lead the Design Execution team responsible for turning site concepts into permit-ready and construction-ready design packages for Zipline sites. This person will lead a group of design managers who own site designs from initial concept layout through issue-for-permit and issue-for-construction deliverables. This role is for someone who has spent meaningful time managing design delivery for physical infrastructure: site layouts, civil design, structural coordination, electrical interfaces, permit drawings, consultant coordination, jurisdictional comments, utility engagement, application and co-ordination, construction document quality, and design changes during construction.

• Lead the Design Execution function responsible for delivering site-specific charging-site designs from concept layout through issue-for-permit and issue-for-construction sets.
• Grow, manage and develop a team of design managers who coordinate internal stakeholders, external consultants, engineering disciplines, permitting requirements, and construction feedback.
• Build a predictable design delivery process with clear gates, drawing expectations, review cycles, permit-submission readiness, IFC readiness, and construction-support expectations.
• Own design execution quality across many concurrent sites, making sure drawings are complete, coordinated, buildable, permit-ready, and aligned with Zipline standards.
• Partner with Design Concepts and Standardization so execution teams have strong templates, basis-of-design documents, design guides, checklists, and repeatable details.
• Cook up close with Construction, Service Operations, Project Engineering, Launch, Real Estate, Legal, Finance, and external consultants to keep design packages aligned with site constraints, schedule, budget, permitting strategy, and construction reality.
• Establish mechanisms to catch design issues early, including constructability reviews, discipline coordination reviews, jurisdictional-risk reviews, and lessons-learned loops from the field.
• Manage consultant performance, including scopes of work, deliverable quality, timelines, communication, revision control, and design accountability.
• Help define role boundaries between design managers, project engineers, consultants, construction managers, and standards engineers so execution work moves quickly without unclear ownership.
• Build the team, tools, and operating cadence needed to support higher site volume across more markets.

What You'll Bring

• 5-10+ years of experience in design management, architecture, civil engineering, structural engineering, infrastructure design, site development, or a related physical-infrastructure design role.
• At least three to five years of experience managing small teams of direct reports, ideally design managers, architects, engineers, or technical project leads.
• A professional background in architecture, civil engineering, structural engineering, or a related discipline. Licensure is helpful but not required if the operating experience is strong.
• Experience managing permit and construction drawing sets for physical infrastructure, including issue-for-permit and issue-for-construction deliverables.
• Experience working with external design consultants and internal cross-functional teams in an owner-side, consultancy, EV charging, solar, retail rollout, industrial, logistics, or distributed-site environment.
• Strong judgment on drawing quality, constructability, permitting risk, discipline coordination, scope boundaries, and when a design is ready to move forward.
• Ability to build process without slowing execution: design checklists, review gates, drawing standards, consultant scorecards, templates, and escalation routines.
• Clear communication with engineers, architects, construction managers, permitting partners, finance, legal, and operations stakeholders.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving environment where standards are evolving, volume is increasing, and the design system needs to get better with every site.