Simulation Software Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

22h•$180,000 - $220,000•Onsite

About The Position

Zipline is seeking a Simulation Software Engineer to build and evolve the core infrastructure used to validate its robotics fleet software. The role focuses on high-performance, high-fidelity digital twins and deterministic, faster-than-real-time testing of autonomous flight logic, cloud connectivity, and vehicle coordination across mission scenarios. The simulation environment is intended to operate independently of physical hardware while supporting safety-critical testing at scale. The engineer will develop reusable simulation infrastructure, integrate production software and hardware into virtual environments, scale testing from individual vehicles to fleet-scale scenarios in continuous integration, and help engineering teams create tests, debug failures, improve workflows, and extend simulation capabilities. The platform supports teams across flight software, testing, cloud, hardware-in-the-loop, embedded systems, ground systems, and CI/CD. The position is onsite in the Bay Area because of frequent cross-functional collaboration, access to flight-test and hardware-in-the-loop labs, and operational incident response. Occasional travel to field sites or test ranges may be required. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States. Starting cash compensation is $180,000–$220,000; total compensation may also include equity, discretionary annual or performance bonuses, sales incentives, and benefits.

Requirements

At least 4 years of professional software engineering experience in C++ or Rust.
Ability to reason about large software systems, APIs, concurrency, debugging, and software architecture.
Deep experience architecting, building, or maintaining complex robotics, aerospace, or distributed-systems simulations or digital twins.
Expertise in time synchronization, inter-process communication, and determinism in a systems-level or real-time context.
Familiarity with physical modeling, kinematics, dynamics, or robotics simulation concepts.
Eligibility to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Rust.
Experience scaling simulation in CI.
Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL).
Experience with formal verification methods.

Responsibilities

Develop reusable simulation infrastructure, including execution, scheduling, orchestration, APIs, and developer tooling.
Build interfaces that allow flight software, cloud services, embedded software, and hardware to run in deterministic virtual environments.
Scale simulation from single-vehicle debugging to fleet-scale testing across thousands of scenarios in continuous integration.
Support engineering teams in creating tests, debugging failures, improving workflows, and expanding simulation capabilities.