Senior Embedded Software Validation Engineer

Zipline • South San Francisco, CA

6h

About The Position

Zipline’s autonomous drone delivery system relies on software that behaves safely and predictably. The avionics software team owns the flight computer operating system and platform services, as well as reliable management of the avionics sensor suite. As a Senior Embedded Software Validation Engineer, you will lead validation strategy and execution for avionics components, including the flight computer and its related peripherals, to ensure that software executes reliably and deterministically. Your work will help gather the evidence that exposes capability gains, gaps, regressions, and safety risks, and will serve as the foundation for confidently shipping software releases.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of software development, software systems engineering, or software validation experience with robotic systems.
• Strong experience in one or more relevant domains: Embedded Linux, PREEMPT_RT, firmware / RTOS, safety-critical systems, 802.11, Ethernet.
• Experience developing validation strategies for autonomous robotics.
• Experience root-causing failures in complex autonomous systems.
• Proficiency with Rust or other programming languages used in safety-critical applications such as MISRA C, or C++.
• Familiarity with other programming and query languages such as Python and SQL.
• Experience deriving software safety or performance requirements from functional safety requirements or similar requirements decompositions.

Responsibilities

• Develop component-level validation strategy for software correctness, reliability, and performance on an Embedded Linux node.
• Design, implement, and execute nominal, stress, and edge-case scenarios from simulation through full-system flight testing.
• Develop and maintain hardware test infrastructure to meet the above objectives
• Build metrics, visualizations, real-time performance and safety monitors, and automated tools that reveal capability changes and regressions.
• Set validation evidence and exit criteria that inform release, deployment, and operating-domain expansion decisions.
• Debug failures across simulation, hardware, firmware, embedded software, and application software; clearly document findings and escalate unresolved safety or performance risks.
• Partner with test infrastructure teams to increase automated validation coverage, efficiency, and precision while improving confidence in rapid development velocity.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior