Droid Autonomy Validation Intern (Spring 2026)
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 the first instant logistics system that serves all humans equally. Leveraging expertise in robotics and autonomy, Zipline designs, builds, and operates a fleet of cutting edge, autonomous delivery drones. We serve tens of millions of people around the world. Joining Zipline's Emerging Talent program as an intern is an opportunity to contribute to our promise of building a system that provides equitable access to critical healthcare supplies for millions of people. We believe that internships are more than just opportunities to learn by watching or doing low level tasks. We expect our interns to take on meaningful work that actively contributes to moving Zipline's mission forward, while learning real-world skills that will serve them in their careers for the long term. Join us, and build the future of logistics with the best humans around! About the Droid Autonomy Team The Droid Autonomy team owns the entire autonomy stack behind droid package pickup and delivery. This includes perception (understanding the world), the state machine (executing behaviors), and goal planning (deciding where and how to deliver). It's an extremely cross-functional team that brings together expertise in robotics, machine learning, planning, and systems engineering-working as one to make the droid a safe, reliable, and scalable real-world delivery system. The Role Work hands-on with an autonomous robot operating in the real world - to help expand its capabilities for safer and more reliable deliveries. Analyze, validate real-world data to understand system performance and identify failure modes and come up with unique solutions. Design experiments and models that improve the robot's ability to make reliable decisions in messy, unpredictable environments. Translate insights from validation into actionable improvements that directly impact how and where the robot can deliver. Collaborate closely with perception, autonomy, and flight testing teams to see how your work connects across the full robotics stack. Gain experience with the end-to-end process of deploying autonomy at scale-from data, to model, to validation, to live operations. Be part of an extremely motivated team that is delivering real-world solutions at scale, not just research prototypes.
Requirements
- Currently pursuing a Master's in CS, EE, Robotics, or a related field with a familiarity with learning-based perception..
- Fluent in Python plus solid software practices (willing to learn new languages and adapt).
- Statistical reasoning & validation mindset: able to design experiments, account for bias/variance, quantify confidence, and interpret results to guide decisions.
- Structured problem solver: can break ambiguous, real-world problems into hypotheses and executable plans; comfortable making and testing assumptions.
- Able to work in person at our office and thrive in a collaborative, hands-on environment.
Responsibilities
- Work with and iterate on a state-of-the-art autonomous system: analyze flight and perception data, extract key features of the droid's performance, and identify what it takes to scale into new environments.
- Apply data analysis, statistics, and machine learning techniques to increase the reliability and robustness of the droid's deliveries.
- Design and run validation experiments to measure success and failure rates under different real-world conditions (e.g., driveway geometry, car presence, time of day).
- Develop tools and pipelines to evaluate perception models, quantify uncertainty, and connect improvements directly to field performance.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Intern
Industry
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
Number of Employees
1,001-5,000 employees
