Simulation Software Engineer

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 rapid delivery services.

Zipline operates globally and focuses on scaling the future of logistics through autonomous systems.

About You and The Role

Zipline is seeking a Simulation Software Engineer to build and evolve the core infrastructure that validates robotics fleet software. The role focuses on systems-level software engineering and high-fidelity digital twins for deterministic, faster-than-realtime testing of autonomous flight logic, cloud connectivity, and vehicle coordination.

This role supports the safety and reliability of autonomous drone deployment by integrating flight software with synthetic environments, hardware systems, and advanced time-manipulation capabilities.

What You'll Do

• Build reusable simulation infrastructure including execution, scheduling, orchestration, APIs, and developer tooling.
• Integrate flight software, cloud services, embedded software, and hardware into deterministic virtual environments.
• Scale simulation from single-vehicle debugging to fleet-scale CI testing.
• Support engineering teams with testing workflows, debugging, and simulation expansion.

Why This Role is Cross-Cutting

• Validate onboard mission logic for Flight Software teams.
• Support Test teams with pre-flight analysis and troubleshooting.
• Model cloud interactions including map updates and communications.
• Enable Hardware-In-The-Loop testing for flight software validation.
• Support Embedded and Ground teams with integration and resilience testing.
• Prevent regressions through CI/CD simulation workflows.

Why You'll Bring

• 4+ years of software engineering experience in C++ or Rust.
• Strong understanding of APIs, concurrency, debugging, and software architecture.
• Experience with robotics, aerospace, or distributed systems simulations and digital twins.
• Knowledge of time synchronization, inter-process communication, and determinism.
• Familiarity with physical modeling, kinematics, dynamics, or robotics simulation concepts.
• Experience with CI scaling, HIL, or formal verification methods is a plus.

Location & Logistics

• Onsite role in the Bay Area.
• Occasional travel to field sites or test ranges may be required.
• Must be eligible to work in the US.

Additional Information

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds in technology.