---
title: 'Supply Chain Business Operations Manager, AI Strategy at Zipline'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/supply-chain-business-operations-manager-ai-strategy-zipline-south-san-abhpnyvhjy50'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# Supply Chain Business Operations Manager, AI Strategy at Zipline 

- **Company:** Zipline 
- **Location:** South San Francisco California, United States
- **Posted:** 2026-07-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://www.zipline.com/open-roles/7802158003?gh_jid=7802158003

## 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

You will be the owner of AI strategy and execution for Zipline’s Supply Chain Business Operations function. In this role, you will translate urgent operational pain points across supplier management, material planning, inventory health, sourcing, and manufacturing readiness into production-grade AI-assisted workflows that materially increase aircraft availability, reduce production delays, and lower supplier-caused quality incidents. This work matters because Zipline’s delivery network and flight operations depend on predictable supply of airframe, avionics, and mission-critical parts across multiple manufacturing sites and global suppliers. You will report to Supply Chain leadership while operating at the intersection of field operations, manufacturing, supplier industrialization, data engineering, and product engineering to drive measurable, auditable improvements in a regulated, safety-conscious hardware environment.

Location: in-person at HQ, South San Francisco; travel 5–15% for supplier and cross-site engagements (Asia, North America, others as needed).

## What You'll Do

- Own the end-to-end mandate for AI-enabled supply chain products: identify opportunities, build prototypes, validate with frontline teams, and deliver production rollouts with documented KPIs and runbooks.
- In the first 90 days, deliver a validated, automated web app concurrently with a supporting business process and monitoring strategy that measurably improves a core supply chain metric: on-time delivery, quality, or cost.; by 12 months, scale at least one AI product into production which reliably automates a planning and or sourcing workflow.
- Design and deploy AI-assisted workflows, copilots, agents, automations, and decision-support tools that reduce manual work, improve decision quality, and make supply chain teams faster and more effective.
- Partner with Supply Chain, Engineering, Data, IT, Finance, Manufacturing Operations, and external vendors to translate operational pain points into AI-enabled product requirements, prototypes, adoption plans, and measurable business outcomes.
- Build the data foundations, process maps, and feedback loops needed for reliable AI workflows, including data quality checks, source-of-truth alignment, human-in-the-loop review, and clear ownership models.
- Use SQL, Python, BI tools, and AI/LLM platforms to prototype and operationalize tools that synthesize supplier, ERP, MRP, inventory, production, cost, and risk data into actionable recommendations.
- Lead change management for AI-enabled ways of working, including training users, documenting workflows, measuring adoption, gathering feedback, and iterating quickly with frontline and leadership stakeholders.
- Establish practical governance for AI use in supply chain operations, balancing speed with accuracy, security, auditability, and appropriate human oversight while continuing to develop executive-ready insights and recommendations.

## What You'll Bring

- Experience driving operational improvement through data, systems, automation, AI tools, or technical program leadership in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
- Fluency in SQL and Python or similar scripting tools; you can work directly with messy operational data and turn it into usable products, workflows, or decision systems.
- Hands-on experience using AI tools, LLMs, copilots, agents, workflow automation platforms, or data products to improve business processes.
- The ability identify where AI will genuinely improve a workflow, where it will not, and what data, controls, adoption plan, and operating process are required for it to work reliably. You have a strong instinct for spotting poor AI output before it reaches users, and you care deeply about avoiding tools that look polished but produce confusing, unreliable, or low-trust results.
- Strong skills for translating ambiguous business needs into clear requirements, prototypes, roadmaps, and measurable implementation plans.
- Hands-on experience with supply chain, ERP, MRP, supplier management, manufacturing, or planning data models and can connect technical system behavior to operational outcomes.
- Confidence while navigating ambiguous, high-stakes environments where the right answer requires strategic judgment, hands-on building, and strong cross-functional adoption leadership.

Success Signals (first 6–12 months)

- In the first 90 days, deliver a validated, automated web app concurrently with a supporting business process and monitoring strategy that measurably improves a core supply chain metric: on-time delivery, quality, or cost.
- By 12 months, scale at least one AI product into production which reliably automates a planning and or sourcing workflow.

What Else You Need To Know

This role will require travel 5-15% of the time to support strategic initiatives, supplier partnerships, and key meetings. The starting cash range for this role is $147,800 - $285,200. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities. Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

## About Zipline 

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zipline is an American robotics company that operates the world’s largest autonomous drone delivery service, transporting medical supplies, food, and retail goods across multiple continents.
- **Entity Type**: Private (early-stage startup)
- **Headquarters**: South San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: March 2014
- **Founders**: Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oksenhorn, William Hetzler

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Logistics / Drone delivery
- **Target customers**: B2B (healthcare systems, governments, retailers like Walmart and Chipotle) and B2C (home delivery via the Zipline app)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Build the first logistics system that serves all people equally” – initially focused on saving lives by delivering blood and medicine to remote communities, now expanded to instant urban delivery.

## Products & Services
- **Platform 1 (P1)**: Long-range, rural delivery drone. Carries up to 4 lbs, roundtrip range 120+ miles, cruise speed 60 mph. Uses parachute delivery. Designed for enterprise, government, and healthcare supply chains.
- **Platform 2 (P2)**: Urban/suburban home delivery drone. Carries up to 8 lbs, service radius 10 miles (or 24 miles one way), cruise speed 70 mph. Delivers via a tether from up to 300 ft, allowing contactless drop-off. Launched in 2025 and used for food, retail, and health products.
- **Zipping Points**: Modular ground stations that allow businesses to load orders onto drones without specialized equipment.
- **FlightIQ**: Advanced onboard autonomy and perception suite for safe navigation and delivery.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: 2 million commercial deliveries completed (as of January 2026) and 130 million autonomous miles flown.[wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipline_(drone_delivery_company))[zipline-fact-sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not disclosed in available sources. Key partners include Walmart, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Crumbl, Blaze Pizza, Wendy’s, and many other restaurant brands. In healthcare, works with more than 5,000 hospitals and health centers.
- **Growth Signals**: Expanded into urban home delivery in 2025 (P2) with service in Pea Ridge, Arkansas and 20+ communities in Dallas-Fort Worth. Obtained FAA authorization for beyond visual line of sight operations. Reports 56% decrease in maternal mortality and 66% decrease in missed malaria treatments in served regions.[zipline-fact-sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Autonomous drone fleet**: One of the world’s largest commercial deployments of autonomous robots, with custom software running on Nvidia chips.
- **FAA approval**: All operations and aircraft are FAA-approved, including pioneering use of Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM).
- **Quieter than road vehicles**: Drones hover high and descend on a tether, generating noise lower than common neighborhood sounds.
- **Extensive testing**: One of the largest aviation testing campaigns, with operations in rain, wind, and storms.
- **Integrated logistics platform**: Beyond drones, Zipline provides warehousing, inventory management, cold chain storage, and fulfillment software.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling the Platform 2 urban delivery network across the U.S., particularly through partnerships with major retailers and restaurants.
- Deepening healthcare impact by expanding into new countries and product categories (prescriptions, groceries, convenience items).
- Continuing to reduce delivery times and environmental footprint (0 emissions per delivery, compared to automotive delivery).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture values**: Ownership & Accountability, Direct Feedback & Communication, Continuous Improvement, Customer Obsession, Servant Leadership (as stated on careers page). Emphasis on “Make it matter” and mission-driven work.[careers](https://www.zipline.com/careers)
- **Work environment**: Headquartered in South San Francisco with hardware and software teams. The company assembles its drones in America. Likely on-site given the hardware focus; remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated.
- **Impact**: Opportunity to work on life-saving technology (60,000+ lives saved) and shape the future of instant logistics.
- **Engineering culture**: Build and iterate on autonomous systems, airspace deconfliction, and large-scale robotics deployments.

## Sources
1. [Zipline Careers](https://www.zipline.com/careers)
2. [Zipline Homepage](https://www.zipline.com/)
3. [About Zipline](https://www.zipline.com/about)
4. [Zipline Fact Sheet](https://www.zipline.com/about/zipline-fact-sheet)
5. [Wikipedia - Zipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipline_(drone_delivery_company))
6. [Greenhouse Careers Page](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/flyzipline)

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