Flight Test Project Manager
Zipline
About Zipline
About You and The Role
We are seeking a highly organized and proactive Flight Test Project Manager to join our team. This role is critical to ensuring that our flight test organization has the capacity, resources, and infrastructure needed to meet engineering demand and support company-wide milestones. The Flight Test Project Manager will oversee test capacity planning, forecast demand, and manage execution of projects spanning material flows, aircraft logistics, and test site readiness.
What You'll Do
- Test Capacity & Forecasting: Own allocation of test resources, forecast demand from engineering, translate into schedules, and partner with test leads to strategically scale infrastructure.
- Program & Project Management: Lead cross-functional build projects, manage material and aircraft movement across sites, maintain project plans and risk registers, and drive proactive risk escalation.
- Operational Coordination: Develop repeatable scheduling and resource allocation processes, align engineering/production/test teams on priorities, and report progress while resolving bottlenecks.
- Continuous Improvement: Identify gaps in capacity, infrastructure, and processes, implement scalable solutions, and adopt tools that enhance visibility, predictability, and efficiency.
What You'll Bring
The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker who can balance long-term planning with day-to-day execution. You thrive in fast-paced environments, are detail-oriented, and enjoy working cross-functionally to bring order to complex technical programs. You’re motivated by building scalable systems that enable teams to move faster and with greater clarity.
Required:
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Project Management, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 3+ years of project management experience, preferably in aerospace, hardware, or complex engineering environments.
- Strong skills in demand forecasting, capacity planning, and schedule management.
- Experience coordinating cross-functional teams and managing multiple concurrent projects.
- Excellent communication, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
Preferred:
- Background in aerospace, aviation, or hardware product testing environments.
- Familiarity with flight test operations or aircraft development cycles.
- Proficiency with project management tools (e.g., Jira, Smartsheet, MS Project, Asana).
- PMP, PMI-ACP, or similar certification is a plus.