Simulation Software Engineer

🏢 Summary: Senior Software Engineer role focused on autonomy motion planning for large-scale drone delivery systems, developing real-time trajectory generation, decision-making, and safety-critical software for autonomous flight. The position involves optimization, simulation, and validation of autonomous systems operating in complex real-world environments. 🗂️ Requirements: Master's degree in Computer Science or related field, 3+ years building software for safety-critical systems, Experience with autonomous systems in aerospace, AV, or robotics, Strong proficiency in Rust, Strong proficiency in C++, Strong proficiency in C, Experience with real-time fault-tolerant embedded/Linux development, Expertise in planning and search algorithms, Experience with trajectory optimization and MPC, Hands-on experience with SIL/HIL simulation and log replay, Experience shipping production-grade autonomy systems, Ability to collaborate with perception, controls, and flight operations teams 📃 Skills: Rust, C++, C, Linux, MPC, A*, RRT*, SIL, HIL, Robotics, Autonomy, Simulation, Optimization, Embedded 🏢 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 the world's largest autonomous logistics system (ground or air) — and in the coming year, we will be hyper-scaling from thousands to tens of thousands of carefully coordinated drone deliveries in several dense, dynamic U.S. metros. Our Autonomy Motion Planning team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer who is passionate about developing autonomous systems for the real world. This role will explore cutting-edge approaches to decision making and trajectory planning that will enable more accurate and timely deliveries, putting you in the position to make critical product decisions that will shape our future architectures. What You'll Do - Build real-time trajectory generation and decision-making for autonomous flight (search-based, sampling, MPC, convex/non-convex optimization). - Tackle joint optimization across safety, energy, time, and reliability—balancing mission goals with vehicle constraints. - Plan in uncertain environments with complex dynamics: robustness to wind/turbulence, degraded sensors, and partial observability. - Design safety-critical software for avoiding obstacles and interfacing with humans while delivering and picking up packages. - Extend the autonomy stack for new aircraft and payloads; define clean interfaces with perception and controls. - Prove it before flight: large-scale sim, SIL/HIL, log replay, and fault-injection. - Mine real fleet data to validate safety metrics, improve models, and burn down long-tail failure modes. What You'll Bring - Master's degree in Computer Science or related field and 3+ years of experience building software for safety-critical systems (aerospace/AV/robotics). - Strong in Rust/C++/C for real-time, fault-tolerant code on embedded/Linux. - Depth in planning & search (e.g. A*/ anytime / RRT*/sampling), trajectory optimization/MPC—shipped on real robots/vehicles. - Hands-on with simulation at scale, SIL/HIL, log replay, and metrics-driven validation. - Evidence of shipping production-grade autonomy through ambiguous, noisy conditions—owning the last mile to reliability. - Systems thinker who collaborates tightly with perception, controls, and flight ops; crisp docs and design reviews. 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!

🏢 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.

🏢 Summary: Senior Integration & Test Software Engineer role focused on building and owning software-driven SIL, HIL, and EOLT test systems for autonomous delivery drones. The position involves developing automation, integrating embedded hardware and software, supporting production operations, and improving fleet reliability at scale. The role requires strong cross-functional collaboration, production support, and hands-on work with embedded systems and factory test infrastructure. 🗂️ Requirements: 5+ years building integration and test software interfacing with hardware, Strong Python skills, Strong C/C++ skills, Linux system administration experience, Experience with CI and Git, Experience with test automation frameworks, Hands-on embedded systems experience, Experience with board bring-up and instrumentation, Experience with HIL/SIL/EOL test architectures, Experience building automation for factory or safety-critical environments, Ability to own cross-disciplinary test programs end-to-end, Ability to work onsite in South San Francisco regularly, Willingness to participate in on-call rotations and travel up to 20% 📃 Skills: Python, C++, C, Linux, Git, CI, SIL, HIL, EOLT, DAQ, Automation, Embedded, Oscilloscopes, Instrumentation 🏢 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 be the Senior Integration & Test Software Engineer (Long Range Platform) owning software-driven test systems that validate our long-range delivery drones across engineering, manufacturing, and fleet operations. Zipline's mission to deliver critical goods at scale depends on test systems that catch failures before flight and enable rapid, reliable product iterations. You will operate at the intersection of embedded flight code, factory automation, and field operations: designing, deploying, and sustaining turnkey SIL/HIL/EOLT test rigs and automation that directly affect throughput, defect rates, and fleet reliability in production and operational deployments. What You'll Do - Own end-to-end delivery of test systems (SIL, HIL, EOLT, bench rigs) from prototype through production deployment and field sustainment. You are the technical owner accountable for schedules, acceptance criteria, and production readiness. - Ship measurable improvements: define and meet targets such as test coverage %, mean time to detect (MTTD) critical failures, reduction in test cycle time, and defect escape rate reductions tied to your systems. - Architect, implement, and maintain software that runs and orchestrates test sequences, data capture, analysis, and reporting. Build automation and dashboards used by manufacturing engineers and test operators. - Integrate software with hardware under test: board bring-up, sensor calibration, motion systems, power systems, and DAQ instruments. Validate against datasheets and representative hardware in lab and factory settings. - Lead investigations and root-cause analysis for failures discovered in test or production, produce corrective plans, and drive fixes to closure with engineering and operations stakeholders. - Define and enforce test standards, pass/fail criteria, and validation protocols used across products and production lines. Own CI/validation pipelines that gate changes to flight or manufacturing systems. - Work cross-functionally with embedded firmware, hardware, manufacturing engineering, supply chain, and field ops to deploy test systems at scale; coordinate vendor hardware and field installation when required. - Support on-call and production escalation cadence for systems you own. Travel to manufacturing or distribution sites as required. What You'll Bring - Proven history owning cross-disciplinary test or integration programs end-to-end. - 5+ years building integration/test software that interfaces with hardware. - Strong Python and C/C++ skills. - Linux system administration experience. - Experience with CI, Git, and test automation frameworks. - Hands-on experience with embedded systems, board bring-up, instrumentation, and interpreting datasheets. - Experience with HIL/SIL/EOL test architectures. - Experience building automation used in factory or safety-critical environments. - Demonstrated record of delivering systems with measurable impact on throughput, yield, defect reduction, or reliability improvements. - Comfortable with high-impact deadlines, on-call rotations, and occasional site travel. - Ability to drive cross-functional technical decisions and define acceptance criteria. - Ability to work regularly onsite in South San Francisco. - Visa sponsorship available. What Else You Need to Know Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type. We value diversity and welcome applications from those traditionally underrepresented in tech.

🏢 Summary: Software Engineering Manager role leading the development of Zipline’s Launch & Scale Platform, focused on building operational systems that support global infrastructure deployment and launch workflows. The position combines hands-on technical leadership, backend platform architecture, workflow automation, and cross-functional collaboration to scale deployment operations from tens to thousands of sites. Candidates will manage engineering teams, define technical strategy, and build integrated systems supporting construction, permitting, asset tracking, and operational readiness. 🗂️ Requirements: 6+ years building software products, 2+ years managing engineers or equivalent leadership experience, Experience leading backend or full-stack operational platforms, Hands-on software engineering and architecture experience, Experience with distributed systems and workflow orchestration, Experience with event-driven architectures and scalable backend services, Experience building robust APIs and system integrations, Experience integrating ERP, GIS, and document systems, Experience modeling operational workflows and complex state transitions, Ability to define and deliver measurable operational metrics, Experience owning production services and operational reliability, Ability to work cross-functionally with operational stakeholders, Willingness to travel regularly within the U.S. 📃 Skills: Python, APIs, ERP, GIS, Backend, DistributedSystems, Workflows, Architecture, Orchestration, EventDriven, Integration, AssetManagement, Construction, Operations, Infrastructure 🏢 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 are the Software Engineering Manager for Zipline's Launch & Scale Platform: the leader who builds the software systems that enable Zipline to rapidly deploy new infrastructure around the world. This team owns the operational platform that turns a new market from an idea into a live, revenue-generating network—covering site acquisition, infrastructure design, permitting, construction execution, deployment tracking, and launch readiness. Your work directly affects Zipline's ability to expand into new countries and deliver time-critical supplies reliably at scale. This is a greenfield product and engineering leadership role. You will establish the product roadmap, technical vision, and engineering foundations for a platform intended to scale Zipline from tens of sites to hundreds or thousands. You will partner closely with Real Estate, Launch Operations, Construction, Hardware, Flight Operations, Commercial, and Manufacturing to replace fragmented manual workflows with a single, auditable, automated operational system that raises launch velocity, predictability, and safety. What You'll Do - Own end-to-end strategy, delivery, and operational reliability for the Launch & Scale Platform. - Define and prioritize the product and technical roadmap with stakeholders, driving decisions by measurable business impact. - Reduce manual coordination across launch workflows and improve predictability of launch dates. - Translate complex operational processes into durable systems with workflow automation and auditability. - Design and operate production services for business-critical launch systems. - Build integrations across ERP, GIS, document management, permitting systems, construction tools, asset management, and internal operational systems. - Ship code, lead architecture reviews, review critical pull requests, and troubleshoot production incidents. - Hire, coach, and scale the engineering organization. - Collaborate with Launch Operations, Construction, Hardware, Real Estate, Flight Operations, and Commercial teams. What You'll Bring - Engineering Manager experience leading backend or full-stack operational platforms. - 6+ years building software products. - 2+ years managing engineers or equivalent leadership experience. - Experience with distributed systems, workflow orchestration, event-driven architectures, APIs, and scalable backend services. - Experience integrating ERP, GIS, and document systems. - Experience modeling workflows, physical assets, and complex state transitions. - Track record of delivering measurable operational outcomes. - Experience owning production services and designing for operational reliability. - Strong technical judgment, prioritization, and stakeholder influence. Logistics This role can be based in South San Francisco or remote within the U.S. Regular travel is expected to collaborate closely with stakeholders, understand operational challenges firsthand, and build software grounded in real-world workflows. Travel may include visits to headquarters, operating sites, and new market launches. Remote team members should expect more frequent travel, potentially a couple of times per month. What Else You Need To Know Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

🏢 Summary: Internship focused on system validation for autonomous drone logistics systems, including Hardware-in-the-Loop testing, flight test automation, and software validation. The role involves building automated testing pipelines, troubleshooting hardware and software issues, and supporting reliability and safety for mission-critical systems. Candidates will gain hands-on experience with Linux-based testing, CI workflows, and multidisciplinary engineering collaboration. 🗂️ Requirements: Completed second year of undergraduate studies, Understanding of engineering design fundamentals, Experience with Rust or Python scripting, Experience writing Python tests with Pytest or Unittest, Familiarity with test plans or validation plans, Experience debugging hardware and software issues, Understanding of electrical systems, Experience working in Linux environments, Familiarity with Git, Familiarity with Bazel, Familiarity with Jira, Understanding of networking concepts such as RPC or sockets, Experience with CI tools, Ability to work full-time in-person in South San Francisco 📃 Skills: Rust, Python, Pytest, Unittest, Linux, Git, Bazel, Jira, RPC, Sockets, GitHub, Buildkite, CI, HIL, Networking 🏢 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. System Validation Team The System Validation Team ensures the performance, reliability, and safety of Zipline's integrated system of systems, including the Zip, Droid, and Dock. We specialize in Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing, enabling us to validate complex interactions across hardware and software before real-world deployment. Our team builds and maintains automated pipelines that rigorously test software in a simulated environment, ensuring it meets high standards before being tested in flight. By catching potential issues early and refining system behavior, we play a critical role in delivering reliable, safe, and efficient solutions that power Zipline's mission to transform global logistics. Our team owns automation of flight testing as well to capture issues before it happens in commercial flights. The Role As a System Validation Intern, you will contribute to testing and validating Zipline's complete system of systems—spanning the Zip, Droid, and Dock. You'll help build and refine automated testing pipelines, ensuring that software meets rigorous quality standards before being tested in flight. Working closely with a supportive and experienced team, you'll develop hands-on experience with cutting-edge tools and technologies while solving meaningful challenges. Your work will play an essential role in ensuring the reliability of systems that deliver life-saving goods worldwide. This role offers a unique opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment. What You'll Do - Assist in executing Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) tests and flight tests to validate the interaction between Zipline's Zip, Droid, and Dock systems. - Collaborate with a wide range of engineers from different teams to build and refine automated pipelines that test software before it is deployed in flight. - Design and improve tools that stress-test the system in off-nominal cases. - Analyze and troubleshoot hardware and software issues uncovered during testing, contributing to system improvements. - Work alongside a multidisciplinary team to design and execute system-level validation plans. - Develop and enhance scripts and tools to support automated testing workflows. - Learn how to ensure reliability and quality in complex, safety-critical systems, gaining valuable insights into real-world engineering challenges. What You'll Bring - You must have completed the second year of your undergraduate studies. Master's and PhD students are also eligible. - Strong understanding of engineering design fundamentals and the ability to triage and identify root causes of technical issues. - Experience writing Rust or Python scripts to automate tasks or tests, either through coursework or personal projects. - Hands-on experience writing Python tests using tools like Pytest or Unittest. - Familiarity with creating and executing test plans or validation plans for software or hardware systems. - A hands-on approach to problem-solving, including debugging and triaging technical issues. - General understanding of electrical systems such as motors, sensors, cameras, and onboard computers. - Experience working in a Linux environment, including using command-line tools effectively. - Familiarity with tools like Git for version control, bazel for build and test management and Jira for task tracking. - Basic understanding of networking concepts such as RPC or sockets. - Experience working with CI tools like GitHub Actions, Buildkite, or similar. - Strong attention to detail and organizational skills to document test results and track issues effectively. What Else You Should Know This internship is a full-time position, in-person at the South San Francisco office. Fall 2026 interns will work from September to December. 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. Zipline is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the interview process.

🏢 Summary: Hands-on Flight Test Operator role focused on executing and validating drone flight test campaigns for autonomous aircraft from prototype through production readiness. The position involves flight operations, troubleshooting hardware and software issues, safety management, and coordination with engineering teams in onsite field environments. Candidates must hold FAA Part 107 certification and have experience piloting drones or manned aircraft. 🗂️ Requirements: FAA Part 107 certification, Experience piloting drones or manned aircraft, Ability to execute and own end-to-end flight test campaigns, Experience with preflight checklists and go/no-go flight decisions, Ability to troubleshoot hardware and software issues onsite, Experience documenting and escalating safety incidents, Ability to work outdoors in field conditions, Ability to lift and move 50+ lb equipment, Availability for weekends, night shifts, and regional travel 📃 Skills: FAA, Drones, Avionics, Linux, 3Dprinting, Machining, FlightSystems, Diagnostics, Troubleshooting, Testing 🏢 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 are a hands-on Flight Test Operator focused on bringing early-stage Zipline aircraft from prototype through production bring-up. You will execute, iterate, and sign off on flight operations that validate airworthiness, avionics/software integration, and field-deployable procedures that enable drone delivery at scale. You'll work at Zipline's test site(s) and coordinate closely with vehicle engineering, software, safety, manufacturing, and field operations to turn early stage flight software into reliable, release-ready aircraft. This role matters because timely, rigorous flight validation reduces deployment risk, shortens product development cycles, and directly affects delivery reliability for our customers. What You'll Do - Own end-to-end daily flight test campaign execution - Act as Remote Pilot in Command for Zipline's Autonomous Aircraft - Execute mission profiles, feature testing, and fault injection testing - Validate functionality through repeatable ground and flight test procedures - Troubleshoot and repair software and hardware issues on-site to return aircraft to flight - Summarize test results and provide qualitative and quantitative analysis on aircraft performance - Escalate flight performance anomalies to engineering and safety teams - Enforce and improve site safety, manage risks for prototype flights, run briefings and debriefs, and refine SOPs - Work onsite at outdoor test sites with weekends, night shifts, and occasional regional travel What You'll Bring - FAA Part 107 certification required at time of joining - Experience piloting drones or manned aircraft - Demonstrated aeronautical decision making and accountability - Experience creating preflight checklists and escalating safety incidents with documentation - Comfortable working in iterative field environments with rapid diagnostics and repairs - Ability to lift and move 50+ lb equipment and work outdoors for multi-hour test windows - Proven ability to own test campaigns end-to-end and coordinate across engineering, safety, and manufacturing - Nice-to-have: Linux command-line comfort, rapid prototyping skills such as 3D printing and basic machining, and experience with automated flight systems What Else You Need To Know - Full-time position - Starting cash range: $37 - $45 per hour 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 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!

🏢 Summary: Internship focused on building and improving autonomous drone mapping and routing systems, including path planning services, spatial data pipelines, and geospatial analytics tools. The role involves developing scalable solutions for safe and efficient drone operations while working on real-world routing and optimization challenges. This is a full-time, in-person Fall 2026 internship based in South San Francisco. 🗂️ Requirements: Completed at least 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 📃 Skills: Python, Algorithms, Geospatial, Routing, Optimization, Testing, GIS, Spatial, Analytics 🏢 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 the Maps Team Zipline builds and operates autonomous delivery systems that enable fast, reliable, and sustainable delivery for businesses and consumers, transforming how goods move in everyday commerce. To power this, the Maps Team is building out the long term scalable solutions that enable us to fly in new countries and regions as rapidly as possible. This team is responsible for building tools and services that produce artifacts used by our vehicles to fly their missions in the real world. This means the outputs from the Maps Team define the places our vehicles will fly in the world, their constraints, and provide strong priors for the real-time system on the vehicle to follow to accomplish its mission safely. The Role In this role you will contribute to, build, and own portions of Zipline's Maps stack. That includes contributing to an extensible path planning service used for generating routes that are operationally flown every day. It also includes a suite of services for data generation, transformation and access for path planning and flight data analytics. Your work within the team could range from path planning algorithms, validation of artifacts for compliance with flight requirements, to spatial data generation and data transformation pipelines. Your work will help us achieve multi-objective routing and efficient spatial data ingestion and access, enabling Zipline to serve more customers around the world. From this internship, you can expect to learn about how theoretical path planning algorithms are adapted for a real world problem, and how data and spatial search interact to enable routing in air. Our ideal candidate works well in startup environments, is comfortable wearing many hats, and is excited to learn about many aspects of how Zipline's spatial planning works today. 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 - Work with teams to make spatial data accessible instantaneously anywhere in the world - 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 - Must have at least completed the second year of Undergraduate studies. Masters and PhD students are also eligible - Strong analytical and technical problem solving skills - Deep understanding of algorithmic optimization - Proficient coding and programming skills - Understanding of automated testing practices - Preferred experience supporting or developing novel algorithmic research - Preferred experience with spatial data What Else You Should Know This internship is a full-time position, in-person at our South San Francisco office. We will host our Fall 2026 interns from September to December. 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.

🏢 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.

🏢 Summary: Senior Embedded Software Engineer role focused on developing and validating safety-critical embedded software for Zipline’s long-range autonomous aircraft platform. The position involves owning embedded subsystems, building diagnostics and testing infrastructure, and improving fleet reliability through real-time systems development and field validation. 🗂️ Requirements: 5+ years experience in embedded or flight-critical systems, Production experience with embedded software in safety- or mission-critical systems, Strong systems-level experience with C++ or Rust, Experience with bare-metal and RTOS environments, Strong Python experience for test and telemetry tooling, Ability to debug hardware/software interactions using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and telemetry, Experience with fault management and deterministic real-time systems, Ability to own embedded subsystems end-to-end, Bachelor’s degree in EE/CS or equivalent experience, Willingness to travel for field testing and support incident response 📃 Skills: C++, Rust, Python, RTOS, Linux, JTAG, Telemetry, Firmware, Drivers, Embedded, Avionics, Debugging, Oscilloscopes, Datasheets 🏢 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 Senior Embedded Software Engineer on the Long Range Platform (South San Francisco). You will own low-level and edge software that makes our long-range aircraft safe, reliable, and operable across a production delivery network. This role sits at the hardware/software boundary: you will be accountable for flight- and safety-critical embedded stacks running on embedded RTOS systems, and for the diagnostics and validation infrastructure that proves those stacks in the field. Your work directly affects aircraft reliability, mission completion rate, and field-maintenance load across a distributed fleet. What You'll Do Own one or more end-to-end embedded subsystems (firmware, drivers, runtime, monitoring) for the long-range platform and be the primary technical owner for design, implementation, and production readiness. Deliver and maintain flight- and safety-critical code on microcontrollers (bare-metal/RTOS): drivers, device bring-up, real-time control interfaces, fault management, and graceful degradation logic. Define and ship measurable reliability and observability outcomes (MTTR, mission success rate, in-field fault rates, test coverage targets). Instrument systems so flight-data can be used to detect regressions and prioritize fixes. Lead hardware-in-the-loop, bench, and field validation for changes you introduce; partner with systems, hardware, test engineering, and operations to create repeatable test plans and failure-insertion exercises. Build and extend tooling for deterministic test, logging, post-flight analysis, and automated regression tests to accelerate safe deployments across the fleet. Triage and resolve high-severity field incidents: drive RCA, implement fixes, and own follow-through until fleet metrics demonstrate resolution. Collaborate closely with avionics, systems engineering, manufacturing, and flight operations to set integration boundaries, certification inputs, and release criteria for software changes. What You'll Bring Title/level: Senior Embedded Software Engineer as stated. Location: South San Francisco HQ Must-have technical skills: substantial systems-level experience shipping embedded production code in C++ or Rust; strong familiarity with Python for test/telemetry tooling. Experience with bare-metal and RTOS environments is required; experience with embedded linux is nice to have. Production & safety experience: proven track record deploying and operating embedded software in safety- or mission-critical systems (aviation, robotics, industrial controls, or similar). Experience with fault management, deterministic real-time requirements, and validation strategies is required. Debugging & hardware bring-up: demonstrated ability to read schematics, bring up peripherals from datasheets, and debug hardware/software interaction using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and in-field telemetry. Ownership & outcomes: history of owning subsystem delivery end-to-end, shipping repeatable test suites, and meeting quantified reliability targets (provide examples in interview). Logistics & intensity: comfortable with field testing cadence, occasional travel to flight-test sites, and participating in incident response outside standard hours when critical fleet incidents occur. Education & experience: bachelor's degree in EE/CS or equivalent experience; typically 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems OR equivalent demonstrated impact. 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!

🏢 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.