Jobs and Careers

Production Planner

South San Francisco, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 6 Aug 2026

About the role

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 are the Production Planner for Zipline’s aircraft manufacturing lines, responsible for build readiness and on-time execution across NPI and steady-state production. This role sits at the intersection of production scheduling, material readiness, and shop-floor execution that directly enable Zipline’s delivery network. Your day-to-day choices will determine whether aircraft leave the factory ready, qualified, and on schedule for field deployment—affecting customer deliveries, regulatory milestones, and operational safety. You will operate in a high-throughput, safety- and quality-driven factory environment where scope includes multiple product variants, changing BOMs, engineering substitutions, and cross-functional trade-offs.

What You'll Do

Own end-to-end production plans for assigned program(s) and work centers: translate weekly/monthly build targets into daily operator schedules, test capacity, and workstation assignments. Be the single owner for ship-date commitments.
Maintain and update production master schedule and short-term shop schedules (0–30 days) to hit weekly build targets and minimize schedule slippage.
Measure and drive key outcomes: on-time build completion %, first-pass test yield, WIP days, and shortage-resolution SLA. Own recovery plans when metrics fall below target.
Align labor to demand: size daily labor rosters, prioritize cross-trained coverage, and trigger overtime or shift adjustments to meet build targets and reduce bottlenecks.
Own material readiness: validate PO receipts, inspection queues, kitting, staging, and feeder-stock to ensure <24–48 hour material gap resolution for daily builds. Escalate critical shortages with proposed mitigations.
Manage BOM changes and engineering substitutions in production windows with minimal disruption; implement controlled substitutions and workarounds when approved.
Coordinate cross-functionally with Manufacturing Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Test, and NPI to remove blockers, sequence builds, and implement permanent fixes for recurring failures.
Run daily production cadence (standups, dashboard reviews, escalation), maintain planning artifacts (short-interval schedules, shortage logs, recovery plans), and present weekly performance to stakeholders.
Drive continuous improvements that reduce WIP days, increase throughput, and shorten recovery time after disruptions; implement measurable countermeasures and validate impact.
Own escalation for high-impact failures (tooling down, critical part shortage, test bottleneck) and lead rapid corrective action to protect committed delivery dates.

What You'll Bring

5+ years production planning or manufacturing operations experience supporting NPI and production; direct experience in aerospace, drones, robotics, automotive, or advanced electro-mechanical manufacturing strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ownership of production plans for multi-variant products and experience meeting aggressive build-rate targets and recovery SLAs.
Track record of owning measurable outcomes: reduced WIP days, improved on-time build %, shortened shortage-resolution ti