Lead Counsel, IP

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

Do you love patents? Are you excited by the opportunity to develop the IP portfolio of one of the most innovative companies in a new industry? Do you believe that a great IP strategy does not come from patent harvesting, has nothing to do with the quantity of patents but is a surgical, strategic endeavor that can create true, long-term competitive advantage for a company? If that’s you, the Zipline Legal Team is searching for an experienced counsel to lead our global IP portfolio initiatives, including patent and other intellectual property matters related to our business. In this role, you will partner closely with cross-functional stakeholders, such as Hardware, Autonomy, Software, and Product. You’ll bring deep knowledge of IP, a passion for patents, and a positive attitude to everything you do. You’ll be a core member of a strong, friendly, passionate, in-house legal function and will report to Zipline’s [Deputy General Counsel, Corporate]. If you're energized by tackling meaningful problems, excited to innovate and radically improve processes, and motivated by work that truly matters, we'd love to hear from you.

What You'll Do

• Set and execute the strategic direction and management of our global IP portfolio while managing outside counsel as strategically appropriate.

• Own the strategy that will determine where Zipline invests in patents by becoming an expert on the patent landscape, ultimately accelerating Zipline’s lead in autonomous scaled flight.

• Be hands on where it counts, whether it is the details of a claimset, holding external counsel to incredibly high standards for drafting, or going deep to understand how a part of our system works to arrive at the right strategic decision for the portfolio.

• Work closely with our product and engineering teams, including training them on patentability and regularly meeting to understand what IP Zipline is developing on all fronts.

• Create scalable processes internally and externally with outside counsel to build, maintain and protect our IP portfolio.

• Provide direct client counseling