July 14, 2026

Maps Intern (Fall 2026)

Intern • On-site

South San Francisco, CA

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.

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🏢 Summary: Lead the systems engineering team for autonomous drone logistics platforms, defining product architecture, verification, and safety-critical system capabilities at global scale. The role focuses on scaling autonomous aircraft operations, optimizing performance and safety, and driving cross-functional technical roadmaps for complex real-world environments. 🗂️ Requirements: Leadership experience delivering complex technical systems, Experience with safety-critical autonomous systems, Systems engineering expertise, Architecture and interface definition experience, Verification and validation planning experience, Fault-tolerant and fail-safe systems knowledge, Tradeoff analysis using models and metrics, Cross-functional communication skills, Team mentoring and technical leadership 📃 Skills: Systems, Autonomy, Architecture, Verification, Validation, Safety, FaultTolerance, Modeling, Optimization, Metrics, Testing, Regulatory, Hardware, Software, Logistics, Aerospace 🏢 Description: 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 You will lead the systems engineering team responsible for defining the product capabilities roadmap, decomposing those capabilities into concrete architectures engineering teams can deliver on, and system validation & verification of new capabilities across our current platforms as well as new and novel autonomous aircraft concepts. In 2026, we will scale Platform 2 deliveries per day by 10x while we ramp range by 5x - so, we'll fly 50x further every day than we do today. We'll do that while ramping into significantly more complex airspaces and environmental conditions across 5 metros in the US. Then, in 2027 we'll make a similar 10x+ jump while expanding across the globe. This is a key leadership position to find the right path for enabling safe scaling into complex environments, defining architectures to achieve safety and cost goals over hardware and software revisions, and balancing competing objectives such as range, acoustics, delivery throughput, and cost. What You'll Do Scope: Product level requirements, architecture and decomposition, verification plans, operational performance monitoring of key product attributes and functions including: - Network Optimization & Capacity - Aircraft Autonomy - Flight Performance - Operational Design Domain / Operating Envelope - Flight Reliability and Fault Management Responsibilities: - Serve as a trusted technical expert of high-reliability, safety-critical autonomous systems owning system level architecture, requirements, metrics, and test coverage to ensure product capabilities are delivered safely - Define interfaces and drive cross-disciplinary discussions to align on architectures - Develop frameworks and facilitate trade studies to optimize performance, safety, and cost - Create and maintain systems models and diagrams - Set standards for hardware and software releases and test requirements - Partner with safety engineering and regulatory teams to prove flight worthiness Leadership: - Grow and mentor a world-class Systems Engineering team and adjacent teams - Drive multi-year technical roadmap across the product What You'll Bring - Demonstrated leadership delivering complex technical solutions amid ambiguity and competing priorities - Track record of shipping high-reliability, safety-critical autonomous systems into real-world operation - Deep systems engineering experience with product requirements, architecture, interface definition, system decomposition, verification planning, and validation - Technical judgment in safety-critical autonomy including fail-safe, fault-tolerant, and fail-operative approaches - Experience making tradeoffs among safety, performance, cost, and operational constraints using models, metrics, and test evidence - Ability to develop technical leaders and communicate system decisions across engineering, safety, regulatory, and operational teams 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, 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. We value diversity and welcome applications from those traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply.

Technology

Zipline

Senior Flight Test Engineer

Senior

On-site

South San Francisco, CA

🏢 Summary: Senior Flight Test Engineer role focused on leading end-to-end flight test campaigns for autonomous drone delivery systems, validating hardware and software readiness, and building automated testing infrastructure. The position involves analyzing flight data, coordinating with cross-functional engineering teams, and supporting global deployment readiness for critical logistics operations. 🗂️ Requirements: 3+ years experience with autonomous robotic systems, Experience with UAS systems, Ability to analyze large test data sets, Experience debugging hardware and software systems, Systems-level understanding of structures, aerodynamics, embedded systems, and software, Experience maintaining safety in fast-paced environments, Willingness to travel internationally and domestically, Ability to work outdoors in varying weather conditions 📃 Skills: UAS, Robotics, Aerodynamics, Embedded, Software, Automation, Testing, Debugging, Logistics, Data 🏢 Description: 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 Zipline operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods through real-world airspace and logistics environments. As a Senior Flight Test Engineer you will lead comprehensive flight test campaigns and integrate automated testing infrastructure into our flight test program. In this role, you will develop a deep understanding of Zipline's end-to-end logistics system and work closely with cross-functional partners to generate rapid insights into changes across hardware, software, and operations. Your work will serve as the final line of defense before software or hardware are deployed globally to perform critical real-world deliveries. You will own system-level flight test campaigns from planning through execution and analysis. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys translating complex engineering questions into effective test programs and using data and automation to accelerate learning. What You'll Do - Develop and lead end-to-end flight test campaigns validating aircraft performance, delivery and pick up operations, docking systems, and fleet orchestration. - Define system-level objectives, success criteria, and test plans with mechanical, electrical, software, systems and operations partners. - Assess hardware and software readiness, evaluate risk posture, and make flight-readiness decisions before test execution. - Analyze flight data to identify anomalies, trends, and opportunities for continuous improvement. - Produce deployment-readiness recommendations and prioritized corrective actions from campaign evidence. - Build and integrate automated test tooling that improves test precision, insight, capacity, and velocity. What You'll Bring - 3+ years designing, developing, or validating autonomous robotic systems; UAS experience is preferred. - Strong ability to analyze and interpret large test data sets for engineering decisions. - Experience bringing up and debugging hardware and software systems for automated platforms. - Systems-level reasoning across structures, aerodynamics, embedded systems, and software. - Sound judgment about when to move quickly with pragmatic solutions and when to invest in durable infrastructure, process and tooling. - Experience maintaining and enforcing safety in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving environment. - Willingness to travel domestically and internationally for flight testing, approximately 2–6 weeks per year, and work outdoors in varying weather conditions. 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, 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. 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!

Technology

Zipline

Senior / Staff Mechanical Engineer, Dropbox

Senior

On-site

South San Francisco, CA

🏢 Summary: Senior Mechanical Engineer role focused on designing and owning electromechanical assemblies for Zipline’s autonomous Dropbox delivery system. The position covers end-to-end mechanical development, validation, manufacturing support, and field reliability improvements for customer-facing unattended hardware. The role requires hands-on collaboration across engineering, manufacturing, suppliers, and operations in a high-reliability production environment. 🗂️ Requirements: End-to-end electromechanical hardware development experience, Mechanism and structural design expertise, Advanced CAD proficiency, GD&T and tolerance stack-up experience, FEA and mechanical analysis skills, Prototype and validation testing experience, Root-cause analysis and corrective action experience, Integration of PCBAs, motors, sensors, and embedded controls, Manufacturing and supplier collaboration experience, Ability to work on-site in South San Francisco, Willingness to travel for suppliers, testing, and deployments 📃 Skills: CAD, GD&T, FEA, DFM, DFA, PCBAs, Sensors, Actuators, Transmissions, Bearings, Kinematics, Telemetry, Embedded, Manufacturing, BOMs 🏢 Description: 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 Zipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that move critical goods reliably and safely. Dropbox is our customer-facing package-loading product that integrates mechatronics, sensors, electronics, access control, user interaction, and environmental protection so untrained users can hand off packages to our droids. Failures or slow service at Dropbox directly increase field escalations, maintenance cost, and delivery delays—this role changes fleet uptime and customer trust. As a Senior Mechanical Engineer on Dropbox, you will own the mechanical architecture and detailed design of key assemblies through validation, production ramp, and fleet operation. You will make architecture-level tradeoffs that balance safety, reliability, manufacturability, and serviceability for an unattended field-facing product. This is a hands-on, individual-contributor role responsible for designs that must meet high-cycle life, environmental exposure, and low-maintenance targets in real-world sites. What You'll Do - Own end-to-end mechanical scope for Dropbox assemblies: requirements, architecture, detailed CAD, drawings, specifications, BOMs, and production release. - Define success metrics for your systems and drive design choices to meet them. - Translate customer workflows, hazard analyses, and droid interfaces into mechanical requirements and verified designs. - Lead trade studies and system-level decisions across safety, reliability, cycle time, environmental performance, serviceability, DFM, DFA, cost, and schedule. - Create GD&T, datum strategy, alignment schemes, and tolerance stack-ups across complex electromechanical interfaces. - Perform first-principles analysis, hand calculations, kinematic analysis, fatigue and wear assessments, and FEA. - Integrate actuators, transmissions, bearings, sensors, PCBAs, connectors, harnesses, seals, and embedded controls into reliable assemblies. - Partner with Electrical, Embedded Software, Systems, Test, Reliability, Manufacturing, Operations, and Safety teams. - Prototype rapidly, run experiments and test campaigns, and use data to reduce technical risk. - Lead investigations of prototype, production, and field failures through root-cause analysis and corrective actions. - Work directly with suppliers, NPI, and Manufacturing to implement DFM/DFA changes and qualify production processes. - Use fleet telemetry, service records, and field observations to prioritize design improvements. - Mentor engineers and improve mechanical design best practices and documentation quality. What You'll Bring - Proven end-to-end ownership of electromechanical hardware through concept, validation, production ramp, and field deployment. - Deep mechanism and structure design experience with actuators, transmissions, bearings, seals, and high-cycle moving assemblies. - Strong mechanical fundamentals including hand calculations, FEA grounding, kinematics, bolted joints, materials, and tolerance analysis. - Advanced CAD skills managing system-level assemblies and drawing releases. - Demonstrated GD&T mastery and practical tolerance-stack experience. - Prototyping and testing experience with ability to convert data into design decisions. - Track record resolving complex hardware failures through disciplined root-cause analysis. - Experience integrating PCBAs, wiring harnesses, motors, sensors, and embedded controls into mechanical designs. - Experience working with suppliers and manufacturing to ship high-volume, high-reliability hardware. - Ability to work in-person in South San Francisco with regular travel to suppliers, manufacturers, test locations, and deployment sites. - Comfort working in customer-facing field systems with rapid escalation and production-support demands. - Strong engineering judgment, documentation discipline, and data-driven troubleshooting. What Success Looks Like - Delivered mechanical releases meeting reliability targets and production yield goals. - Reduced field service events and mean time to repair for owned assemblies. - Established validation coverage and supplier processes that shorten failure-to-fix cycles and lower service costs. What Else You Need to Know Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type protected by law. We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech.

Technology

Zipline

Mechatronics Perception Intern (Fall 2026)

Intern

On-site

South San Francisco, CA

🏢 Summary: Internship focused on developing perception and sensing systems for autonomous drone operations, including prototype data collection platforms, embedded software, and CAD-based mechanical design. The role involves building and testing sensing solutions using radar and camera technologies in real-world environments. 🗂️ Requirements: Completed second year of undergraduate studies, Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals, Proficiency in CAD design, Embedded software development experience, Experience with Arduino or Raspberry Pi devices, Ability to design mechanical, electrical, and software systems, Experience with radar or camera sensors, Ability to independently prototype and test solutions 📃 Skills: CAD, Arduino, Raspberry, Radar, Camera, Embedded, Software, Mechanical, Electrical, Sensors 🏢 Description: 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. About the Zip Perception Team The Zip Perception team owns the onboard and offboard perception systems that detect and track airborne and ground obstacles. This is a multi-disciplinary team that is involved in developing the embedded sensing systems through detection, tracking, and prediction. Your work here would help define how we prepare the Zipline fleet to perform mission-critical deliveries in complex, real-world environments. The Role As a member of the Zip Perception Team, you'll work towards helping develop new sensing modalities to improve the safety of our Zip aircraft. You'll be able to take ownership on designing a prototype data collection platform, from the CAD design, to the software powering the platform. This role is focused on driving solutions from ideation through field testing. What You'll Do - Design, build, and run prototype data collection rigs to provide key data for training and live detections. - Use 2D and 3D CAD tools to design parts, assemblies and fixtures based on sound engineering principles. - Develop software to ingest sensor data and integrate with other software components. - Use resources creatively to design, build, and test prototypes to gather quick learnings. - Work cross-functionally with other Zipline teams and suppliers to review designs. What You'll Bring - Completed second year of undergraduate studies; Masters and PhD students are also eligible. - Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals with the ability to independently size and integrate components. - High proficiency in CAD with experience delivering multiple projects. - Solid embedded software background with experience using Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or similar embedded devices. - Experience working on projects involving mechanical, electrical, and software design. - Ability to adapt quickly and simplify solutions when appropriate. - Previous experience with radar or camera sensors. What Else You Should Know - Full-time, in-person internship based in South San Francisco from September to December 2026. - Compensation is $50 per hour. - Additional benefits may include relocation support, housing stipend, overtime pay, paid sick time, and other applicable benefits. - Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations during the interview process.