Counsel, Real Estate

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking an experienced Counsel in the United States to close real estate leases for drone charging infrastructure and related facilities. You will draft, negotiate, and manage agreements with cross-functional teams including Site Acquisition and Finance, applying practical legal judgment and project management to a high volume of transactions.

You will build scalable deal processes, support landlord issues, and collaborate closely with internal clients to ensure timely, compliant

Qualifications

• Experience drafting and negotiating commercial real estate leases.
• 3–5 years of relevant legal experience; in-house or law firm background preferred.
• JD degree; bar admission in good standing; eligible to work in the United States.
• Clear, pragmatic contract drafting and strong project management skills.

Responsibilities

• Draft, negotiate, and close real estate leases for drone charging infrastructure.
• Lead contracting, from scoping through execution, with cross-functional teams.
• Improve deal templates and negotiation playbooks for efficiency.
• Support landlord escalations and lease management processes.
• Build repeatable, rigorous deal processes and strong internal relationships.
• Provide broad legal support across the Real Estate portfolio as needed.

Skills

Contract drafting

Negotiation

Project management

Real estate transactions

Legal judgment

Time management

Education

Juris Doctor (JD) degree

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

The Zipline Legal Team is searching for an experienced, technically-sound, and process-oriented Counsel who will smoothly and repeatedly close leases for critical infrastructure with our Operations Team, and provide legal support on a range of real estate matters. In this role, you will serve as a key member of the Legal Team supporting real estate agreements, working especially closely with the Site Acquisition Team on scoping, drafting, negotiating, and closing agreements for our drone charging infrastructure. You'll pair your surgical legal drafting and deft negotiation skills with your project management skills to support the business by efficiently negotiating and closing commercial real estate agreements. You'll be a core member of a strong, friendly, passionate, in-house legal function and will report to Zipline's Deputy General Counsel-Head of Commercial, while partnering closely with Senior Counsel, Real Estate.

What You'll Do

• Develop a deep understanding of Zipline's product and service offerings, business strategy, mission and values.
• Confidently, efficiently, and thoughtfully draft, negotiate, and close real estate leases for drone charging infrastructure, maintenance and testing facilities, taking ownership from initial draft through execution.
• Lead the contracting process for the transactions you support - from initial scoping through execution - working cross-functionally with Site Acquisition, Land Use (Legal), Finance, and other teams within Zipline.
• Develop deep expertise in Zipline's lease forms, playbooks, and negotiation strategies, using that expertise to help the team close a high volume of transactions efficiently and consistently.
• Contribute to improving Zipline's deal templates and forms to better support the business’s goals and improve transaction efficiency.
• Support landlord escalations and contribute to lease management processes.
• Help build and socialize thoughtful, repeatable, and rigorous deal processes that bring predictability and calm to your clients on the Site Acquisitions Team and streamline and simplify deals.
• Build genuine relationships with each member of the Site Acquisition Team so that you are in sync when closing lease agreements.
• When called upon, a willingness to dive-in to provide support on needs that arise across the Legal team.

What You'll Bring

• Experience drafting and negotiating commercial real estate leases or other commercial real estate agreements.
• Experience with infrastructure, industrial, logistics, telecommunications, or other operational real estate is a plus but not required
• Clear, cogent, and pragmatic contract drafting, communication, and project management skills that you deploy to keep a high volume of transactions moving efficiently across multiple stakeholders.
• You enjoy solving practical legal problems, are comfortable working through ambiguity, and exercise sound legal judgment in novel areas of commercial real estate.
• You thrive in high-pressure and time-sensitive situations and love the feeling of undramatically and quickly closing contracts for and with the business.
• Effective, tactful, friendly, and high-integrity negotiation skills, both verbally and in writing.
• Strong time management skills that enable you to set aggressive but realistic deadlines that you meet (and usually beat), even with competing priorities.
• Empathy for your internal customers and stakeholders as well as the customers that you're negotiating against.
• You don't overthink issues, rabbit-hole on theoretical risk, or over-negotiate against yourself.
• Approximately 3-5 years of relevant legal experience supporting commercial real estate transactions. A combination of law firm and in-house experience is preferred, but not required.
• JD Degree required.
• Member in good standing of at least one state bar.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States.

What Else You Need To Know

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.