Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Using robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About You and The Role

You’re a systems thinker with a passion for reliability, data-driven operations, and enabling high-performing teams. As the Service Engineering Lead, you’ll own the global technical response framework that keeps Zipline’s fleets flying. This role sits at the intersection of operations, maintenance, and engineering — ensuring grounded assets are restored to service with maximum speed, safety, and quality.

You will lead a distributed team of service engineers across time zones, build the tools and metrics that define serviceability excellence, and drive cross-functional collaboration with design engineering, reliability, and maintenance teams. Your focus will be on both real-time operational execution and continuous improvement, balancing firefighting with long-term system optimization.

What You'll Do

Team Leadership & Coordination

• Lead and mentor a global team of Service Engineers who provide 24/7 technical coverage for Zipline’s fleets, docks, and droids.
• Own shift planning and coverage models to ensure seamless global handovers and incident response.
• Establish and enforce standards for escalation, communication, and service restoration quality.
• Build a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Operational Performance & Reliability

• Define and track key service engineering KPIs such as:
• Mean Time to Restore Service (MTTR)
• Mean Time Between Maintenance (MTBM)
• Discrepancy closure rate
• SLA compliance and escalation response time
• Lead reviews of major groundings and coordinate with Reliability, Systems, and Flight Test to identify and address systemic issues.
• Prioritize fleet-impacting incidents and allocate resources for maximum operational benefit.

Process, Tooling, and Data Systems

• Develop and iterate the service engineering performance dashboard (Databricks/Snowflake/Jira integrated).
• Manage automation and analytical tooling for:
• Work order lifecycle tracking
• Serviceability stage transition metrics
• Downtime clustering and Pareto analysis
• Partner with Data and Engineering teams to improve log ingestion, failure detection, and asset performance tracking.
• Own and evolve the Service Engineering playbooks, documentation, and troubleshooting guides.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as the primary operational liaison to Design Engineering, Systems Engineering, Reliability, and Operations.
• Lead post-incident reviews and ensure learnings are captured into design changes, documentation updates, or software improvements.
• Collaborate with Maintenance and Flight Test to refine diagnostic procedures and standardize feedback loops from the field to design.

Continuous Improvement & Strategy

• Establish a long-term roadmap for Service Engineering maturity — from reactive troubleshooting to predictive and automated serviceability management.
• Identify process bottlenecks and automation opportunities (e.g., incident triage, log parsing, alert routing).
• Lead service readiness validation for new hardware and software releases before deployment to commercial operations.

What You'll Bring

• Strong technical foundation in systems, aerospace, mechatronics, electrical, or software engineering.
• Proven experience in technical operations, flight test, or maintenance environments where uptime is critical.
• Demonstrated leadership in cross-functional coordination, incident management, or shift operations.
• Advanced data analysis skills (SQL, Python, Databricks, or similar) and familiarity with operational dashboards.
• Experience with troubleshooting processes and root cause analysis,
• Excellent communication skills for high-stakes environments and distributed teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing or mentoring a global technical team.
• Familiarity with Jira, Zerp, incident.io, and integrated ERP/maintenance systems.
• Proficiency in building operational metrics or BI dashboards (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Looker).
• Background in aviation maintenance programs or reliability engineering.
• Experience with automation, scripting, or tool integration to improve incident response and reporting workflows.

What Else You Need to Know

• This is a leadership role with partial on-call participation to maintain operational awareness.
• Travel may be required (10–20%) for training, site visits, or engineering collaborations.
• The position operates under strict performance metrics and regulatory compliance.

What Else You Need to Know