Senior Embedded Software Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

10h•$160,000 - $250,000

About The Position

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 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. You will have experience in implementing proven reliable and deterministic software components for hardware peripherals for use in robotics or autonomous applications, particularly in systems deployed at scale. The role sits at the hardware/software boundary: you will be responsible for flight- and safety-critical embedded software running on an embedded Linux system, and for the diagnostics and validation infrastructure that proves the performance and reliability of that software in the field. Your work directly affects aircraft reliability, mission completion rate, and field-maintenance load across a distributed fleet.

Requirements

Substantial systems-level experience shipping embedded production code in C++ or Rust
Experience with embedded Linux environments is required
Proven track record deploying and operating embedded software in safety- or mission-critical systems (aviation, robotics, industrial controls, or similar)
Experience with fault management, deterministic real-time requirements, and validation strategies is required
Demonstrated ability to read schematics, bring up peripherals from datasheets, and debug hardware/software interaction using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and in-field telemetry
History of owning subsystem delivery end-to-end, shipping repeatable test suites, and meeting quantified reliability targets (provide examples in interview)
Bachelor’s degree in EE/CS or equivalent experience
Typically 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems OR equivalent demonstrated impact

Nice To Haves

Experience with bare-metal or RTOS environments is nice to have

Responsibilities

Own one or more end-to-end avionics subsystems, such as GNSS, Cellular, IMU and be the primary technical owner for design, implementation, and production readiness.
Deliver and maintain flight- and safety-critical code on embedded Linux: drivers, device bring-up, real-time data interfaces, fault management, and graceful degradation logic.
Define and ship measurable reliability and observability outcomes (in-field fault rates, test coverage targets). Instrument systems so flight-data can be used to detect regressions and prioritize fixes.
Lead hardware-in-the-loop, bench, and field validation for changes you introduce; partner with systems, hardware, test engineering, and operations to create repeatable test plans and failure-insertion exercises.
Build and extend tooling for deterministic test, logging, post-flight analysis, and automated regression tests to accelerate safe deployments across the fleet.
Triage and resolve high-severity field incidents: drive RCA, implement fixes, and own follow-through until fleet metrics demonstrate resolution.
Collaborate closely with avionics hardware, systems engineering, manufacturing, and flight operations to set integration boundaries, certification inputs, and release criteria for software changes.