Maps Intern (Fall 2026)

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.

Our customers include 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.

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.

About the Maps Team

Zipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that enable fast, reliable, and sustainable delivery for businesses and consumers. The Maps Team develops scalable solutions that enable operations in new countries and regions rapidly by building tools and services that produce artifacts used by vehicles to fly missions safely in the real world.

The Role

In this role you will contribute to and own portions of Zipline's Maps stack, including extensible path planning services, data generation and transformation systems, and flight data analytics services.

Your work may involve path planning algorithms, validation of artifacts for compliance with flight requirements, and spatial data generation pipelines. The internship provides exposure to adapting theoretical planning algorithms to real-world routing problems.

What You'll Do

• Work on services that generate routes and spatial planning artifacts
• Use tools to visualize and evaluate geospatial features that impact serviceability
• Collaborate with teams to make spatial data accessible globally
• Improve planning algorithms to make routing fast, safe, and reliable

Examples of Previous Internship Projects

• Prototyping a new path planning algorithm to enhance long-range routes
• Incorporating multidimensional risk data into the routing engine
• Creating tooling for generating composite Digital Elevation Models
• Building infrastructure to enable drones to survey large areas

What You'll Bring

• Completed at least the second year of undergraduate studies
• Strong analytical and technical problem-solving skills
• Deep understanding of algorithmic optimization
• Proficient coding and programming skills
• Understanding of automated testing practices
• Preferred experience with algorithmic research
• Preferred experience with spatial data

Additional Information

This internship is a full-time, in-person position in South San Francisco running from September to December 2026.

Zipline is committed to equal opportunity employment and providing reasonable accommodations throughout the interview process.