Senior Analyst – Network Planning & Site Strategy

About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Using robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About You and The Role

Zipline is on a mission to transform how goods move by making autonomous drone delivery the fastest, most reliable, and most delightful logistics system in the world. With the launch of our P2 system in January 2025, deliveries in the United States are growing rapidly — and we are preparing to scale our physical network at unprecedented speed.

We’re looking for a Senior Analyst to help decide where Zipline builds next. Over the next two years, we will deploy hundreds of charging and delivery sites across the U.S., and this role will play a central part in determining which metros we enter, where within those metros we build, and how much infrastructure we deploy.

This is not a traditional analytics role. You won’t be handed clean datasets and narrowly defined questions. Instead, you’ll work in a highly ambiguous, novel problem space — finding, creating, and integrating data where it doesn’t yet exist. You’ll partner closely with go-to-market, real estate, engineering, and operations teams to translate spatial, commercial, and operational complexity into clear recommendations for leadership.

To succeed, you must be comfortable owning open-ended problems, working deeply with Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) and building scalable analyses, tools, and automations that enable Zipline to grow faster and smarter.

What You'll Do

Network & Site Strategy:
Evaluate potential metros and charging locations using GIS, mapping tools, and diverse datasets. You’ll help define where Zipline should expand, how infrastructure should be distributed, and what constraints matter most.

Real Estate Decision Support:
Provide clear, data-backed guidance to real estate teams on where to search, how much to build, and how to evaluate tradeoffs in lease terms, site characteristics, and long-term flexibility.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:
Work closely with sales, customer success, real estate, engineering, and operations to align spatial planning decisions with commercial demand, operational feasibility, and customer needs.

Visualization & Communication:
Create clear, compelling GIS visualizations and analytical outputs that distill complex spatial and operational dynamics into simple, executive-ready conclusions.

Scaling Through Automation & AI:
Build repeatable tools, workflows, and automations — leveraging AI where appropriate — so that site evaluation and metro planning can scale beyond you and be used broadly across Zipline.

Problem Framing in Ambiguity:
Develop reasonable assumptions and proxy metrics when perfect data doesn’t exist. You’ll identify creative ways to answer critical questions despite incomplete or noisy information.

What You'll Bring

High Ownership & Initiative:
You are a self-starter who thrives in unstructured environments. When you don’t have the exact data you need, you find a way forward — whether through proxies, external datasets, or novel approaches.

GIS & Spatial Analysis Experience:
At least 3-5 years of hands-on experience with geospatial data wrangling, querying, analysis, visualization, and validation.

Business Judgment:
Strong intuition for how analytical insights translate into business impact. You can evaluate tradeoffs in cost, risk, and scalability — including the implications of lease terms and infrastructure investments.

Analytical & Technical Fluency:
Advanced proficiency in Excel and Google Sheets. Comfort using AI tools for analysis, light programming, and troubleshooting. Familiarity with SQL and Python is expected. Zipline primarily uses open source GIS tools, such as QGIS.

Executive Communication:
Ability to present conclusions with clarity and poise. You can simplify complex analyses, clearly state assumptions, build executive standard presentations, and guide leadership toward confident decisions.

Comfort with Ambiguity:
You are energized by novel problems and uncertain inputs. You make thoughtful assumptions, test them, and iterate quickly in pursuit of better answers.

Why This Team?

Direct Ownership of Expansion:
Your work will directly influence where Zipline builds infrastructure and how fast we scale across the United States. You will be the key person helping guide where drone delivery goes next at a macro and micro level.

Cross-Functional Impact:
You’ll partner with some of Zipline’s most critical teams — from real estate and go-to-market to engineering and operations — shaping decisions that span the entire company.

Build Something New:
This is a chance to help define how network planning and spatial analytics work in a brand-new industry. You’ll have the freedom to invent tools, processes, and frameworks from the ground up.

High Trust, High Impact:
We value speed, rigor, and judgment. Your analyses won’t sit in decks — they’ll inform real decisions that unlock growth and operational excellence.

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, 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!