Senior Manager, Global Supplier Industrialization

Confirmed live in the last 24 hours

Zipline

South San Francisco, California, USA

On-site

Posted April 1, 2026

Job Description

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. 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.

About You and The Role

Zipline is scaling drone production and flight operations by more than 20× over the next three years while maintaining best-in-class safety and reliability. You will own the entire supplier industrialization and supplier development engineering functions — building the team, processes, tools, and culture that make Zipline’s massive scale-up possible without compromising quality, delivery, or cost. This role reports to the VP of Supply Chain, and will have 10-15 direct reports.

What You'll Do

Full accountability for supplier readiness: every new program and every major ramp must pass through your organization’s technical gates before volume commitments are made.
Build and lead a world-class team of Supplier Quality Engineers (SQEs), Industrialization Engineers, and NPI/Development Engineers
Design and enforce Zipline’s global Supplier Industrialization Framework from first principles:

Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP)
Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) with Zipline-specific submission requirements (FAI (“First Article Inspection”), PSW (“Part Submission Warrant”), dimensional reports, material certifications, process capability, etc.)
Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) moderation and risk buy-off methodology
Run-at-Rate and ramp validation protocols
Process capability roadmaps (Cpk targets, statistical process controls)
Supplier scorecard system (OTD (“On-Time Delivery”), PPM (“Parts Per Million” defect rate), capacity utilization, cost-reduction delivery, risk)
Digital interface collaboration with Software leadership to ensure issue tickets and RCCA are documented and routed back to suppliers

Creation of robust, first-principles based should-cost modeling methodology. Build and maintain bottoms-up, parametric should-cost models for every critical commodity (carbon-fiber aero structures, high power density Li-ion battery packs, brushless propulsion motors, avionics/powertrain PCBAs, precision-machined flight-critical parts, ground systems hardware, etc). Your models will be the source of truth for commercial negotiation benchmarking, make-vs-buy decisions, and annual cost-reduction targets.
Lead technical deep dives with suppliers on Design for Manufacturability/Assembly (DFM/A), automation ROI, tooling investment, and value-engineering initiatives driven directly from should-cost models.
Develop dynamic capacity modeling tools that forecast supplier output 12–36 months forward under multiple demand scenarios, including the rate improvement action tracking systems needed to ensure industrialization risks are understood and mitigated
Act as the final technical gatekeeper in Production Readiness Reviews (PRRs) and PPAP/FAI sign-off<