Emerging Talent Recruiter (Contractor)

We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.

Zipline's Emerging Talent Recruiting team hires the early-career engineers, technicians, and operators who scale our autonomous logistics platform-airframes, avionics, manufacturing, field operations, and software that deliver life-saving medicine. This contractor role (Emerging Talent Recruiter) is a focused, owner-level delivery role for the upcoming fall university season (expected contract: 4-6 months, start August; potential extension based on performance and headcount needs).

You will be the primary recruiter driving pipeline, event execution, and hires for a defined slate of 10-20 internship and entry-level requisitions across Hardware, Manufacturing, Field Operations, and Software teams. Success here directly affects Zipline's ability to staff launch sites, scale production throughput, and maintain operational readiness for regulated flight and medical deliveries.

We are looking for an Emerging Talent Recruiter to join us as a contractor to support our upcoming busy fall university recruiting season, with the potential for extension beyond that. In this role, you will play a key part in discovering and hiring the next generation of builders at Zipline. You will manage full-cycle recruiting for various early-career roles, while also planning and facilitating engaging recruiting events at universities and technical competitions.

This is a hands-on, fast-paced contract position perfect for someone who excels at candidate engagement, event logistics, and building strong, collaborative partnerships with hiring managers during our peak hiring season.

We prefer to have someone work out of our South San Francisco Headquarters, but we're open to remote for the right person!

- Own 10-20 concurrent early-career requisitions from intake to close: write/publish JD, screen, full-cycle interview coordination, extend offers, and manage offer acceptance logistics. Target time-to-offer: 4-6 weeks for screened candidates; hit ≥85% offer acceptance within role bands.

- Plan and execute 6-12 campus events and competitions during peak season (virtual info sessions, campus career fairs, hackathons, technical talks). Set and hit event KPIs: leads per event (target 20+ qualified leads), pipeline conversion to interview (target 15%+), and hire yield (target 2-4 hires per major event series).

- Source proactively: build and maintain a pipeline of 300+ early-career candidates via university partnerships, targeted sourcing, referrals, and technical communities; manage top-of-funnel metrics and weekly pipeline updates.

- Stakeholder ownership: partner directly with hiring managers in Hardware, Manufacturing, Field Ops, and Software to define role requirements, own interview loop design, and run calibrated debriefs. Escalate pipeline or offer issues and recommend tradeoffs to the Hiring Lead.

- Event logistics & compliance: coordinate travel, shipping of materials, booth staffing, and on-site candidate assessments; ensure recruiting activities meet export, safety, and data-handling constraints where applicable.

- ATS, reporting & continuous improvement: single-point ownership for ATS hygiene (Greenhouse), weekly dashboarding of time-to-fill, pipeline conversion, event ROI, and a post-season playbook with improvements and university priority lists.

- Minimum 3 years full-cycle campus/early-career recruiting experience supporting technical roles (hardware, manufacturing, software, or field operations) OR 2 years + demonstrable campus event ownership with technical hiring outcomes.

- Proven owner-level delivery: managed 10+ concurrent requisitions and 4+ campus events in a peak season; comfortable owning offers and closing candidates within compensation bands.

- Measurable track record: able to present past KPIs (time-to-offer, offer-accept rate, event lead→hire conversion) and concrete examples of hitting targets under tight timelines.

- Logistics & travel readiness: available for domestic travel up to 40% during peak season (including occasional evenings/weekends); able to work onsite from South San Francisco HQ at least 2 days/week when not traveling.

- Tools & process: daily Greenhouse experience required; ATS/reporting fluency and comfort building dashboards in Google Sheets/Looker or equivalent.

- Legal & authorization: must be legally authorized to work in the U.S.; Zipline cannot sponsor visas for this contractor role.

- Must-have traits: rigorous owner mindset, comfort making tradeoffs under hiring pressure, decisive stakeholder facilitation, and attention to operational safety/regulatory constraints when recruiting for field and hardware roles.

Zipline is unable to sponsor work visas for applicants to this position.

The starting cash range for this co ntractor position is $60.00 - $65.00 / hour. 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 can didate's experience, qualifications, skills, and working location.

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.

Zipline is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your point of contact at Zipline know if you require any accommodations throughout your interview process.