Technical Recruiting Manager

Namely; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Technical Recruiting Manager in a high-growth environment to lead a team of Technical Recruiting Partners and partner with engineering leadership on long-term hiring strategies. You will coach recruiters to identify exceptional talent and build a scalable recruiting organization that maintains a high hiring bar.

The role requires 8+ years in tech recruiting and 2+ years of people management, with strong business judgment and data-driven decision making.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of people management experience leading recruiters and building ownership culture.
• 8+ years of experience recruiting technical talent in high-growth environments.
• Ability to make sound decisions in ambiguous settings using data and judgment.
• Strong ability to influence senior leaders with market insights and recommendations.
• Deep understanding of competitive engineering talent landscapes and top talent.
• Exceptional sourcing instincts for identifying high-potential candidates.
• Excellent communication to build trust with executives, hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates.
• Bias toward action and solving hard problems with mission-driven people.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of Technical Recruiting Partners, setting high expectations for execution and accountability.
• Collaborate with engineering leaders to translate priorities into long-term hiring strategies.
• Coach recruiters to identify exceptional people and raise technical and cultural bar.
• Bring knowledge of the engineering talent landscape to influence strategy and executive decisions.
• Improve recruiting processes, interview quality, calibration, and operational rigor.
• Build a recruiting organization that scales with the company while maintaining high hiring standards.

Skills

People management

Technical recruiting

Ambiguity handling

Business judgment

Talent landscape awareness

Sourcing instincts

Executive communication

Bias toward action

Tools

Greenhouse

LinkedIn Recruiter

GEM

Goodtime

Google Suite

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 people we hire determine what Zipline is capable of building. As a Technical Recruiting Manager, you'll lead a team responsible for hiring the engineers and technical leaders building the future of autonomous logistics.

You'll partner directly with engineering leadership to understand where the business is going, anticipate talent needs before they become hiring plans, and develop recruiting strategies that enable Zipline to execute on its most ambitious goals. You'll coach recruiters to operate as trusted advisors—not coordinators—who bring market expertise, sound judgment, and relentless execution to every search.

This role is about much more than managing recruiters. You'll build a high-performing recruiting organization that consistently identifies exceptional talent in highly competitive markets, raises the quality of hiring across the company, and continuously improves how we recruit. Every hire matters, and every recruiting decision has long‑term implications for the trajectory of the company. We're looking for someone who believes recruiting is one of the highest leverage functions in a growing company and is excited to build the team responsible for finding the people who will define Zipline's future.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and develop a team of Technical Recruiting Partners, setting a high bar for execution, judgment, and accountability.
• Partner with engineering and program leaders to translate business priorities into long‑term hiring strategies and talent plans.
• Coach recruiters to identify exceptional people—not just qualified candidates—and build teams that raise the technical and cultural bar across Zipline.
• Bring deep knowledge of the competitive engineering talent landscape to influence hiring strategy, organizational planning, and executive decision‑making.
• Continuously improve how Zipline hires by strengthening recruiting processes, interview quality, calibration, and operational rigor.
• Build a recruiting organization that scales with the company while maintaining an exceptional hiring bar.

What You’ll Bring

• 2+ years of people management experience leading and developing recruiters while building a culture of ownership, urgency, and continuous improvement.
• 8+ years of experience recruiting technical talent in high‑growth, high‑performance environments.
• Ability to work in ambiguous environments, using judgement and data to make sound decisions in a fast moving organization.
• Strong business judgment and the ability to influence senior leaders through data, market insights, and thoughtful recommendations.
• Deep understanding of the competitive engineering talent landscape and a track record of hiring exceptional technical talent.
• Exceptional sourcing instincts and the ability to recognize people who will outperform on paper qualifications alone.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build trust with executives, hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates alike.
• A bias toward action and a desire to solve hard problems with talented, mission‑driven people.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience recruiting across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, operations, aviation, robotics, autonomy, hardware, software, or logistics organizations.
• Experience with Greenhouse, LinkedIn Recruiter, GEM, Goodtime, Google Suite.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $170,000 - $240,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; overtime pay; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

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!