Head of Weather Systems
About the job
- A minimum of 6+ years of industry experience shipping mission-critical decision systems, with demonstrable ownership of automated operational decision logic in production at scale.
- Deep fluency in scientific Python, including Pandas, NumPy, Xarray, and NetCDF.
- Experience with time-series or streaming systems such as Kafka or an equivalent technology.
- Comfort reading and working with production stacks including Kubernetes, AWS, and Rust or C++ codebases.
- Ability to prototype and ship models into production pipelines.
- Strong working knowledge of meteorology, aviation weather, or related geospatial environmental science.
- Ability to explain physics, uncertainty, and operational implications to non-experts and regulators.
- Experience defining quantitative metrics involving false-positive and false-negative trade-offs.
- Experience designing validation experiments using simulation and field tests.
- Experience documenting failure modes and rollback criteria.
- Experience working with 24/7 operational systems, incident response, and service-level agreements.
- Ability to make and own high-consequence trade-offs under uncertainty.
- Ability to lead or directly influence small cross-disciplinary teams and drive measurable improvements in uptime, throughput, or reliability within 6–12 months.
- Must be able to work onsite in South San Francisco full-time and travel internationally.
- Ability to make decisive, rigorous, and measurable operational decisions under uncertainty.
- Own the end-to-end development and operational performance of the automated weather intelligence and risk system used for mission go/no-go decisions across Zipline’s operational regions.
- Translate meteorological uncertainty into concrete, testable operational limits and encode them into automated decision logic used in daily operations.
- Define and measure quantitative success targets, including uptime improvement, false downtime rate, missed-risk rate, and delivery-throughput impact, and deliver measurable improvements within the first 12 months compared with the first year of commercial operations.
- Lead validation using simulation, historical log replay, flight testing, and live operations; design experiments and acceptance criteria for new models, sensors, and rules before production rollout.
- Prioritize trade-offs across safety margin, operational availability, sensing cost, model complexity, and deployment speed; document failure modes and rollback criteria for all changes.
- Own cross-functional execution with Flight Operations, Safety, Flight Sciences, Simulation, Field Sites, and Engineering by defining service-level agreements, incident roles, and escalation paths for weather-driven incidents.
- Drive the roadmap for sensing, data ingestion, model tooling, and runtime decision services; sponsor infrastructure such as streaming, simulation, and monitoring to meet operational service-level agreements.
- Hire, mentor, and manage a small technical team of 3–5 engineers or scientists, or partner with an existing engineering manager while retaining product and technical ownership of the weather system.
- Operate an on-call and incident rotation for weather-system outages; run post-incident reviews, own corrective action plans, and feed learnings into validation and deployment processes.
About the company
Zipline builds and operates autonomous drone delivery networks for retailers, restaurants and healthcare systems that need to move products without road traffic. Its electric aircraft carry food, prescriptions and other supplies from partner sites or distribution hubs to customers and health facilities. The company combines aircraft, charging equipment and delivery software with flight operations, so partners buy a logistics service rather than manage their own drones. Merchants use its ordering and tracking tools to reach customers, while governments and health systems contract for medical supply delivery. Zipline was founded in 2014 and has its headquarters in South San Francisco, California.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
Series I
Total Funding
$3.1B
Headquarters
South San Francisco, California
Founded
2014
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Growth teams have fresh funding: Zipline raised over $600 million in January 2026 to expand delivery operations.
- Consumer distribution is widening: Zipline announced Uber Eats integration in August 2026, with first deliveries planned later that year.
- Operations extend beyond pilots: Zipline reported over 2.7 million completed deliveries across four continents in August 2026.
What critics are saying
- New Texas scale is pending: Zipline's September 2026 five-metro proposal remains under FAA environmental review.
- Bulk deliveries face a weight ceiling: Zipline's proposed Texas P2 aircraft have an eight-pound payload limit.
- Field testing disrupts regular hours: Zipline's Esparto operator posting requires nights, weekends and occasional regional travel.
What makes Zipline unique
- Its delivery pod steers itself: Zipline lowers an autonomous robot on a tether while the larger aircraft stays overhead.
- Different docks share capacity: Zipline's P2 aircraft fly between docks and recharge before taking the next delivery.
- Public health is a core customer: Zipline runs Rwanda's national blood-delivery network alongside its US consumer service.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Company Equity
Performance Bonus
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
0%1 year growth
-1%2 year growth
-2%US drone logistics company Zipline will expand operations in Côte d'Ivoire, building nine additional facilities to complement its existing site operational since 2023. The expansion aims to serve 12 million people, roughly a third of the Ivorian population, over the next eight years. During its three-year pilot programme, Zipline delivered nearly 4 million medical products — primarily vaccines and blood — to more than 200 healthcare centres in a region northwest of Abidjan. The Ivorian government will cover operating costs including pharmacy-grade warehousing, cold chain management, digital tracking, and delivery for eight years. Zipline expects the government to achieve a three-fold return on its investment, though the company declined to disclose the exact financial terms. The deal represents growing African government adoption of drone technology for delivering social services to hard-to-reach areas.
Zipline, a startup making drones that can deliver small packages like meals and medical supplies, is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of roughly $20 billion, according to three people with knowledge of the fundraise. The funding round, if it closes, would more than double its ...
Uber Technologies has partnered with drone delivery company Zipline to offer autonomous drone deliveries to Uber Eats customers in the US, with the service launching before year-end. Uber will make an undisclosed strategic investment in Zipline as part of the agreement. The partnership will enable Uber Eats users in areas where Zipline operates to select drone delivery for orders. The companies plan to expand the service to dozens more US cities and aim for a combined capacity of one million drone deliveries daily by end of 2029. Zipline currently operates on four continents. The partnership aims to reduce delivery times to between five and ten minutes for US customers. The agreement forms part of Uber's hybrid delivery strategy, which combines human couriers, pavement robots and drones.
Strategic partnership targeting one million drone deliveries daily by the end of 2029, with first deliveries later this year. Drone delivery on Uber Eats will launch across existing Zipline markets and target expansion into dozens of US cities. Uber to make a strategic investment in Zipline, reinforcing a long-term partnership to accelerate the scale of drone delivery. Zipline, a leader in drone delivery, and Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) today announced a strategic partnership, which aims to scale drone delivery across the United States. Uber and Zipline are partnering to bring drone delivery to millions of Americans on Uber Eats The first deployments will begin later this year, where Uber Eats customers will have the option to receive their orders in minutes via Zipline’s autonomous drone delivery. Uber will also make a strategic investment in Zipline and, together, the companies aim to reach one million drone deliveries per day by the end of 2029. Zipline operates on 4
Uber is partnering with drone delivery company Zipline, aiming to make one million deliveries per day using Zipline's drones by the end of 2029. The first deliveries on Uber Eats will begin by year-end in Zipline's existing markets, with plans to expand into dozens of US cities. The companies did not disclose the investment amount. Uber is bringing multiple drone delivery partners onto its platform as it seeks to grow Uber Eats. The ride-hail giant previously partnered with Israeli startup Flytrex late last year. Zipline recently closed an extended Series H funding round of $800 million, reaching a valuation of $7.6 billion. Uber thinks Zipline's drones can fulfil orders within five to ten minutes.