Flyzipline
Production Manager of Manufacturing Operations
South San Francisco, California, USA. Posted 3 months ago
The role
You will deliver aircraft and autonomy hardware by transitioning pilot builds to sustained high-volume production. You will lead frontline production teams and manage day-to-day execution for assembly lines.
What you will do
- Own day-to-day execution and outcomes for 4 Top Level Assembly lines and 12 feeder lines
- Drive production to concrete targets for units per week and ship dates
- Manage and develop production supervisors, leads, and technicians across shifts
- Maintain on-site accountability for quality, safety, and regulatory checkpoints
- Lead planning, scheduling, tooling allocation, and build readiness
- Implement, standardize, and enforce SOPs, build packets, work instructions, and manufacturing control systems
- Monitor and own key metrics including throughput, yield, cycle time, downtime, scrap rate, labor efficiency, and MTTR
- Support NPI ramp plans including training curriculum, quality gating, and defect-reduction targets
- Champion a culture of accountability and safety
Required qualifications
- 8+ years in production/operations leadership with direct P&L or output ownership
- Experience leading multiple assembly lines and first-line managers
- Proven experience scaling pilot-to-full-rate manufacturing in electro-mechanical or aerospace/robotics environments
- Demonstrated MES/ERP proficiency
- Strong data-driven process control skills
- Comfortable operating in 12–16 hour ramp days
- Demonstrated track record owning safety-critical processes, quality gates, and traceability
- History of meeting throughput, yield, and on-time delivery targets
- Experience hiring, developing, and retaining frontline supervisors and technicians
- BS in engineering, operations, or equivalent experience
- Strong ability to read technical drawings, BOMs, and PFMEA outputs
About the company
Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. They design, build, and operate an autonomous logistics system to deliver food, medicine, and essential goods.