Autonomy Platform Software Engineer
Company: Zipline
Location: South San Francisco
Posted on: April 2, 2026
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Job 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’re a systems-minded SWE who lives at the
boundary of autonomy, embedded Linux, and hardware. Reporting to
the Head of Droid Autonomy, you’ll own the delivery runtime end to
end. You’ll bring up compute and sensors on Jetson/Linux, design
flight/runtime orchestration—mission state machines, behavior
gating, safe-state transitions—and build observability (logging,
health monitoring, replay) for fast, trustworthy post-flight
validation. You bring deep Linux expertise (kernel, userspace,
performance tuning), experience shipping robotic applications to
real customers, and strong software architecture chops in
strongly-typed languages (Rust/C++; Python for tooling). You
communicate clearly, make legible, auditable safety decisions, and
bridge HW?SW while leading cross-functional stakeholders to closure
on complex trade-offs. What You'll Do: Integrate and own Delivery
Zip runtime software: Bring up, configure, and validate new compute
and sensor hardware across our autonomy stack. Develop system-level
observability: Build logging, health monitoring, and replay tooling
for post-flight analysis and validation. Drive reliability of
software: Autonomy subsystem requires a highly reliable platform to
build solutions on. Develop and maintain embedded software: Write
robust, low-latency Rust/C++ code on embedded Linux. Design
flight/runtime orchestration logic: Build mission state machines,
behavior gating, and safe-state transitions across compute nodes
under real-time constraints. Validate safety and performance: Use
SIL/HIL and real-flight telemetry to measure deterministic behavior
and prove reliability before deployment. What You'll Bring: 3 years
of experience in delivering robotic applications to real-world
customers. Strong expertise in low level OS/linux/jetson Strong
software engineering skills, with proficiency in at least one
strongly typed language; we use Rust and C++ onboard, and Python
for tooling Strong system mindset; able to see how the full system
comes together Deep expertise in embedded Linux development,
including experience with kernel modifications, userspace
programming, and performance tuning Strong software architecture
skills, with experience designing and shipping solutions for
complex real-world use cases Strong communication and
documentation; you make complex safety decisions legible and
auditable. Able to bridge the gap between HW and SW, to ensure a
robust system. Technical leadership to bring multiple stakeholders
together to drive complex decisions forward. What Else You Need to
Know This is an in-office role. We are looking for folks who can be
in our South San Francisco offices at least 4 days per week. The
starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - 210,000 a year.
Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a
candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The
final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors,
including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications,
skills, working location, and projected impact. The total
compensation package for this role may also include: equity
compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales
incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance;
paid time off; and more. Zipline is an equal opportunity employer
and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without
regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or
religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition,
genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and
related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity,
gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status,
citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal
or local law or our other policies. 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!
Keywords: Zipline, South San Francisco , Autonomy Platform Software Engineer, Engineering , South San Francisco, California
