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July 15, 2026

Senior Motion Planning Software Engineer

Senior • On-site

South San Francisco, CA

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 major healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants, and global businesses that rely on fast and reliable autonomous logistics operations.

We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth.

About You and The Role

Zipline operates the world's largest autonomous logistics system and is scaling drone deliveries across dense U.S. metros. The Autonomy Motion Planning team is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop advanced decision-making and trajectory planning systems for autonomous flight.

What You'll Do

  • Build real-time trajectory generation and decision-making for autonomous flight using search-based, sampling, MPC, and optimization methods.
  • Tackle optimization across safety, energy, time, and reliability.
  • Plan in uncertain environments with wind, turbulence, degraded sensors, and partial observability.
  • Design safety-critical software for obstacle avoidance and human interaction during deliveries.
  • Extend the autonomy stack for new aircraft and payloads.
  • Validate systems using large-scale simulation, SIL/HIL, log replay, and fault-injection.
  • Analyze fleet data to improve safety metrics and system reliability.

What You'll Bring

  • Master's degree in Computer Science or related field and 3+ years of experience in safety-critical systems.
  • Strong Rust, C++, and C programming skills for embedded/Linux systems.
  • Experience with planning and search algorithms, trajectory optimization, and MPC.
  • Hands-on experience with simulation, SIL/HIL, and metrics-driven validation.
  • Experience shipping production-grade autonomy systems in real-world conditions.
  • Strong collaboration and systems thinking skills across perception, controls, and flight operations.

Additional Information

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity across its teams.