Test Maintenance Program Manager

About You and The Role 

You are joining Zipline as the Test Maintenance Program Manager to own end-to-end program delivery that keeps test aircraft and test sites mission-ready across Zipline’s test operations footprint (NestZ, Nest0, Truckzilla, Cascades, and future sites). This role sits at the intersection of Maintenance Operations Engineering, Flight Test, Product, and site operations and exists because maintenance readiness directly determines flight-test cadence, safety margins, and the pace at which we validate new hardware and scale commercial operations. You will translate day-to-day maintenance demands into owned programs that remove blockers, tighten configuration control, and turn test-site learnings into repeatable processes and tooling that improve fleet availability and reduce safety/regulatory risk.

What You'll Do 

• Own program-level delivery for test maintenance across NestZ, Nest0, Truckzilla, Cascades, and new test sites: set milestones, assign owners, enforce deadlines, and be accountable for program outcomes.
• Translate floor-level maintenance needs into program plans: capture tooling, parts, documentation, technician training, inspections, configuration baselines, and return-to-service assumptions.
• Act as the primary programmatic link between Maintenance Ops Engineering, Flight Test, Engineering, Product, and site operations—drive cross-functional decisions and escalate unresolved risks to stakeholders.
• Maintain and own configuration and modification tracking for all active test aircraft: ensure change-control compliance, run configuration audits, and close corrective actions.
• Track and report measurable readiness metrics and SLAs (e.g., percent of aircraft meeting campaign-ready criteria, mean time to return-to-service, blocker closure rate) on a cadence tied to campaign schedules.
• Run regular Test Maintenance Program Updates for leadership and site teams that surface blockers, decisions needed, impacts to flight-test velocity, and resource gaps.
• Design and deploy dashboards, checklists, and workflows that reduce technician administrative burden and speed maintenance execution.
• Convert test-site lessons into standard work, tooling requirements, documentation updates, validated training inputs, and go/no-go criteria for commercial handoff.
• Lead or coordinate maintenance validation campaigns and own program decisions about scale versus rework based on readiness outcomes and risk tolerances.

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years in program management, maintenance operations, test operations, engineering operations, or a closely related technical operations role; demonstrated ownership of complex, multi-site programs.
• Direct experience with aircraft maintenance, aviation test operations, aerospace hardware test, fleet operations, or high-tempo field maintenance environments preferred and will be assessed as a hard discriminator.
• Proven ability to own outcomes (not just coordination): set deadlines, force tradeoffs, escalate, and close actions with measurable impact on readiness and cadence.
• Hands-on experience with configuration management, change control processes, inspections/audit readiness, and hardware modification tracking.
• Track record building dashboards and operational metrics (examples: % campaign-ready, MTTR for return-to-service, blocker backlog age) and using them to drive prioritization.
• Comfortable operating under time pressure with tangible consequences to delays (flight-test schedule slips, safety/regulatory exposure, lost validation opportunities).
• Strong communicator who can run cross-functional meetings, write concise program updates, and present readiness tradeoffs to engineering and test leadership.
• Proficient with tools such as Jira, Confluence, spreadsheets, dashboarding tools, and distributed communication platforms.
• Location & logistics: role requires regular onsite presence at Zipline test sites and coordination across multiple locations; ability to travel between test sites (frequency will vary by program cadence) and be flexible around test-campaign schedules is required.
• Must be able to work schedules aligned with flight-test windows, including occasional early mornings, late evenings, or weekend campaign support as needed.

Success Outcomes (examples you will be measured on in the first 12 months)

• Achieve >90% campaign-ready aircraft for targeted validation campaigns within agreed timelines.
• Reduce mean time to return-to-service by 25% across test fleet within 12 months.
• Cut maintenance-related blocker volume impacting flight-test cadence by 40% through program execution and tooling.
• Demonstrably convert ≥80% of site lessons into approved standard work, tooling specs, or documentation updates with assigned owners.
• Improve configuration audit pass rate to target threshold required for test campaign acceptance within 6 months.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $95,000-$130,000. 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.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!