Staff Embedded Firmware Engineer

Zipline•South San Francisco, CA

23h•$160,000 - $250,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Zipline is hiring an embedded firmware engineer to develop and maintain software for aircraft microcontrollers and embedded Linux computers. The role focuses on C++ firmware and supporting tools that enable critical flight and safety functions, and on improving observability and diagnosis for aircraft deployed at field sites worldwide, including locations with limited network access. The engineer will work with electrical, mechanical, embedded Linux, and systems engineers to turn hardware behavior and flight data into reliable, maintainable software. The position is based in a hybrid in-office and distributed work environment centered around Zipline’s South San Francisco headquarters. Regular office work is required. The role’s starting cash range is $160,000–$250,000, with the specific level and compensation depending on experience, qualifications, skills, work location, and projected impact. The total compensation package may also include equity, discretionary annual or performance bonuses, sales incentives, benefits, and paid time off.

Requirements

Strong software engineering skills and production experience writing C++ for embedded or resource-constrained systems.
Experience with embedded communications, such as Ethernet, serial interfaces, or other hardware communication protocols.
Experience designing and debugging real-time firmware, including task scheduling, interrupts, concurrency, synchronization, and memory constraints.
Experience building and maintaining real-world deployed embedded systems and handling edge cases to ensure consistent safety, reliability, and high performance.
A systems mindset and strong debugging intuition, including the ability to narrow down possible causes of problems.
Fluency in implementing peripheral drivers based on electrical schematics and datasheets, and debugging at the hardware-software boundary to support prototype hardware evaluation.
Ability to work from the South San Francisco office on a regular basis.

Responsibilities

Design and build C++ firmware for a distributed system of aircraft microcontrollers.
Develop reliable Ethernet, serial, and other microcontroller communication interfaces.
Define platform-level interfaces and reusable firmware components that support multiple aircraft subsystems.
Ensure predictable and reliable performance of microcontroller systems and communication buses across startup, real-time operation, fault handling, and recovery.
Optimize real-time behavior, including CPU utilization, memory usage, scheduling latency, timing jitter, and resource contention.
Develop metrics, monitoring, and troubleshooting capabilities to prepare the system for field deployment at scale.
Develop Rust-based tooling and software-in-the-loop simulations to test and validate firmware behavior.