Autonomy Platform Software Engineer

About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building, manufacturing and operating the first instant delivery and logistics system that serves all humans equally, wherever they are. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart, to enabling healthcare providers to bring care directly to U.S. homes, we are transforming the way things move for businesses, governments and consumers. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Using robotics and autonomy, we are decarbonizing delivery, decreasing road congestion, and reducing fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access to billions of people and building a more resilient global supply chain.

Join Zipline and help us to make good on our promise to build an equitable and more resilient global supply chain for billions of people.

About You and the Role

You’re a systems-minded SWE who lives at the boundary of autonomy, embedded Linux, and hardware. Reporting to the Head of Droid Autonomy, you’ll own the delivery runtime end to end. You’ll bring up compute and sensors on Jetson/Linux, design flight/runtime orchestration—mission state machines, behavior gating, safe-state transitions—and build observability (logging, health monitoring, replay) for fast, trustworthy post-flight validation.

You bring deep Linux expertise (kernel, userspace, performance tuning), experience shipping robotic applications to real customers, and strong software architecture chops in strongly-typed languages (Rust/C++; Python for tooling). You communicate clearly, make legible, auditable safety decisions, and bridge HW↔SW while leading cross-functional stakeholders to closure on complex trade-offs.

What You'll Do:

• Integrate and own Delivery Zip runtime software: Bring up, configure, and validate new compute and sensor hardware across our autonomy stack.

• Develop system-level observability: Build logging, health monitoring, and replay tooling for post-flight analysis and validation.

• Drive reliability of software: Autonomy subsystem requires a highly reliable platform to build solutions on.

• Develop and maintain embedded software: Write robust, low-latency Rust/C++ code on embedded Linux.

• Design flight/runtime orchestration logic: Build mission state machines, behavior gating, and safe-state transitions across compute nodes under real-time constraints.

• Validate safety and performance: Use SIL/HIL and real-flight telemetry to measure deterministic behavior and prove reliability before deployment.

What You'll Bring:

• 3+ years of experience in delivering robotic applications to real-world customers.

• Strong expertise in low level OS/linux/jetson

• Strong software engineering skills, with proficiency in at least one strongly typed language; we use Rust and C++ onboard, and Python for tooling

• Strong system mindset; able to see how the full system comes together

• Deep expertise in embedded Linux development, including experience with kernel modifications, userspace programming, and performance tuning

• Strong software architecture skills, with experience designing and shipping solutions for complex real-world use cases

• Strong communication and documentation; you make complex safety decisions legible and auditable.

• Able to bridge the gap between HW and SW, to ensure a robust system.

• Technical leadership to bring multiple stakeholders together to drive complex decisions forward.

What Else You Need to Know

This is an in-office role. We are looking for folks who can be in our South San Francisco offices at least 4 days per week.

The starting cash range for this role is $160,000 - 210,000 a year. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!