Senior Software Engineer – Rust Language Maintainer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

14h•Onsite

About The Position

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, dedicated to providing access to food, medicine, and essential goods globally. They design, build, and operate an autonomous logistics system, having completed millions of deliveries across four continents, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. Their system aims to strengthen supply chains, reduce congestion, and give people time back, with over 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown. Zipline seeks practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth, motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and scaling the future of logistics. The software team delivers safety-critical software at lightning speed, with a small team building the tooling and standards that enable efficient development. In this role, you will work closely with engineers across autonomy, firmware, flight software, avionics, and simulation. You will be on the front lines, pairing with other software engineers daily, developing coding guidelines and standards, and ensuring their consistent application across the development workflow. Your work will involve shaping strategic technical direction, identifying appropriate tools and standards, and deep codebase work, including writing and maintaining safety-critical Rust and C++ code, debugging challenging issues, and improving execution environments. Above all, you will be a trusted partner to other engineers, improving their experience while raising the bar on safety and quality.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in a software development role at engineering-led companies
Deep experience writing and maintaining safety-critical Rust or C++ code
Strong understanding of embedded execution environments (e.g., Nvidia Orin/Thor)
Excitement about having other engineers as your customer: you thrive on pairing, collaborating, and helping others succeed
Ability to develop and enforce coding guidelines and standards across diverse teams
A customer-centric mindset with the ability to embed quickly and work side-by-side with engineers

Responsibilities

Pair daily with other software engineers to improve workflows and enforce coding guidelines
Own and evolve Zipline’s coding standards and development practices
Form and lead a Rust Language steering group
Write and maintain safety-critical Rust and C++ code
Drive improvements to CI/CD, build, and testing pipelines to keep development flowing smoothly
Collaborate with engineers across the org to deliver safe, reliable, and fast development workflows