About the position
Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world's most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda's national blood delivery network and Ghana's COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Through our technology that includes robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.
Responsibilities
- Own and lead complex, multidisciplinary features —from ideation through deployment—bridging autonomy, embedded systems, backend software, and operational teams.
- Architect and implement mission-critical aircraft software in Rust, driving innovation in vehicle and mission management.
- Develop robust infrastructure and tooling to streamline integration workflows, enable scalable flight testing, and facilitate efficient in-field debugging.
- Translate high-level objectives into actionable software interfaces and implementation strategies, emphasizing reliability, ease of testing, and system observability.
- Define and implement system-level telemetry and performance metrics, empowering Zipline to proactively monitor, evaluate, and continuously improve feature performance in real-time.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with autonomy engineers, flight operations, testing teams, and hardware specialists to ensure seamless technical execution and operational effectiveness.
- Mentor and empower fellow engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and collaborative problem-solving.
Requirements
- 10+ years of proven experience developing software for complex, safety-critical hardware systems such as aerospace, autonomous vehicles, robotics, or medical devices.
- Deep expertise writing robust, safety-critical code in Rust, C++, or C.
- Demonstrated technical leadership deploying software solutions on sophisticated autonomous systems operating in challenging real-world environments.
- Extensive experience integrating cross-disciplinary features into production-level systems, particularly in autonomous vehicles, drone systems, or industrial robotics.
- Strong track record in system-level testing and validation, including familiarity with Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) methodologies.
- Proven ability to tackle real-world robotics challenges, effectively addressing edge cases to maintain consistently high system availability and reliability.
- Exceptional skill managing technical ambiguity, decomposing complex projects into clear deliverables, and driving them to successful completion independently.
- Passion for enabling teams, through exceptional tooling, clear documentation, and insightful debugging support.
Benefits
- Equity compensation
- Overtime pay
- Discretionary annual or performance bonuses
- Sales incentives
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Paid time off
