Executive Assistant, Chief Hardware Officer & Head of Autonomy

Zipline is hiring a full-time Executive Assistant to serve Jo Mardall, our Chief Hardware Officer, and CJ Moore, our Head of Autonomy, at our South San Francisco, California headquarters. You'll operate at the operational nerve center of the company, ensuring these two senior leaders remain focused and effective across critical technical, operational, and strategic priorities.

What This Role Involves

This position sits at the intersection of executive leadership and technical operations. Rather than handling purely administrative tasks, you'll partner closely with two executives whose decisions directly shape Zipline's aircraft safety, hardware execution, autonomy systems, and global fleet health. Your work will span calendar management, meeting coordination, decision tracking, travel logistics, and recruiting support across a fast-paced, technically complex environment. Success requires strong business judgment, the ability to follow and prioritize technical conversations without being an engineer yourself, and comfort managing sensitive information across hardware, software, operations, and people matters.

Core Duties

• Manage calendars and priorities for both executives, ensuring time allocation reflects highest-impact decisions and escalations
• Prepare leadership for technical meetings by assembling agendas, context, pre-reads, decisions pending, ownership, and action items across internal systems
• Coordinate critical forums including fleet health reviews, release validation discussions, hardware-software synchronization meetings, and architecture reviews
• Track and maintain follow-ups across technical teams, ensuring decisions, owners, deadlines, and open questions remain visible and actionable
• Support escalation workflows by routing issues to appropriate forums and leaders with clear visibility on status and next steps
• Manage domestic and international travel planning, itineraries, logistics, and contingency arrangements
• Coordinate hiring and recruiting workflows for senior and technical roles, including interview scheduling, candidate coordination, and confidential process oversight
• Represent both leaders and the broader technical leadership team with professionalism and high standards across internal and external interactions
• Identify and implement improvements to information flow, meeting preparation, decision capture, and follow-through processes

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of executive assistant experience, preferably supporting senior leaders in technical, engineering, operations, hardware, software, robotics, aerospace, or manufacturing environments
• Demonstrated ability to manage confidential information with sound judgment across technical, operational, recruiting, and executive matters
• Comfort in technical settings—familiarity with concepts like aircraft reliability, software releases, hardware validation, fleet operations, and engineering escalations
• Proficiency managing calendars, meetings, travel, and logistics in high-velocity environments with evolving priorities
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; ability to translate complex discussions into clear ownership, dates, and next steps
• High ownership and follow-through; proactive about identifying and closing gaps without constant oversight
• Strong prioritization judgment and ability to shield executive focus while remaining responsive to operational urgency
• Ability to build effective working relationships across senior executives, engineers, program managers, recruiters, operations leaders, and field teams
• Meticulous attention to detail with consistently high standards for accuracy and preparation
• Service-oriented mindset combined with the confidence to advocate for priorities and escalate appropriately

About the Company

Zipline operates the world's largest autonomous logistics system, delivering food, medicine, and essential goods via drone across four continents. The company completes a delivery somewhere globally every 30 seconds and has safely flown more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles. Zipline partners with healthcare systems, governments, retailers, and businesses to strengthen supply chains, reduce environmental impact, and provide rapid access to critical supplies. This role offers the opportunity to support executives shaping the future of global logistics at scale.

Applying for This Role

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