Software Engineer - Zipline
Type: Startup Position at Zipline EXPIRED
About Zipline: Zipline is a California-based automated logistics company that designs, manufactures, and operates drones to deliver vital medical products. Zipline's mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies.
In 2014, Zipline was created to deliver medicine to those who need it most. Since then, the company has built the world's fastest and most reliable delivery drone, the world's largest autonomous logistics network, and a truly amazing team. Zipline designs and tests its technology in Half Moon Bay, California. The company assembles the drones and the technology that powers its distribution centers in South San Francisco. Zipline performs extensive flight testing in Davis, California, and operates distribution centers around the planet with teams of local operators.
Zipline is at the forefront of a logistics revolution, using autonomous aircraft to deliver just-in-time, lifesaving medical supplies on multiple continents, 7 days a week. We value engineering solutions that are both innovative and practical, and we deliver, rain or shine, at a scale no other drone company can. We are integrated into national health care systems and are responsible for delivering life saving products when minutes count.
Our Autonomy team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer who is passionate about developing autonomous systems for the real world. This role will explore new approaches to decision making and trajectory planning that enables more accurate deliveries, putting you in the position to make critical product decisions that shapes our future architectures.
Among our current challenges:
- Scale our autonomy software to allow 10,000 deliveries a day
- Prototype, test, and refine autonomy software for next-generation delivery platforms, working alongside other software and hardware teams
- Develop Detect and Avoid solutions that allow us to operate in any real world environment
- Achieve safety and reliability goals beyond the current state of the art
- Ground-up design of planning algorithms for tightly negotiating terrestrial obstacles
This role is based at our headquarters in South San Francisco, California. However, we support a flexible balance of home and office-based work, so don’t let that stop you from applying.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
- Develop onboard decision-making and path planning software for our fleet of delivery drones
- Enable the next level of scale for our life-saving service via fleet-wide coordination and deconfliction algorithms
- Build and use simulation tools to determine the impact of new features before deploying them to the field
- Analyze real data from thousands of flights to ensure the system is operating safely and efficiently
- Architect new components of our autonomy stack as we extend the capability of our software to meet the challenges of new products and platforms
- Mentor junior engineers and influence technical direction for the team
- Work alongside the perception team to drive their subsystem requirements
WHAT YOU'LL BRING
You write quality code, and know how to validate its performance in the real world. You have the judgment to see where a project can be improved, to design a solution, and to see it through to release. You keep the end user and customer in mind in your work. You are comfortable communicating across a diverse engineering team, picking up new skills and sharing your knowledge.
Technical:
- Expertise in writing safety critical code in one or more of: C, C++, Rust
- Demonstrated technical leadership in a production environment, writing software that runs on complex autonomous systems that operate in the real world
- Knowledge of planning and search algorithms with industry experience in robotics, manipulation, or autonomous driving
- Ability to build and use simulation and data analysis tools for evaluating system performance
- Experience building real-world robotics systems and handling the long-tail corner cases to ensure high uptime systems
Target Compensation:
Locations:
San Francisco
Company:
Contacts:
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Unicircles Rating:
Position Expiring:
11th Sep 2025
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