Embedded Software Engineer (Data Platform), Autonomy
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Job Location:
South San Francisco, CA - USA
Monthly Salary:
Not Disclosed
Posted on:
Yesterday
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Job Summary
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 worlds 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 Rwandas national blood delivery network and Ghanas 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. Through our technology that includes 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.
Job Description
ABOUT THE ROLE
As an embedded software engineer on the Data Platform team at Zipline you will be responsible for building the platform that enables our engineering teams to collect process and leverage data from our drone fleet. You will work at the intersection of embedded systems and data engineering creating robust infrastructure that runs onboard our aircraft to handle the vast streams of telemetry sensor and operational data they generate.
Your work will focus on building reusable data processing primitives and tools that other engineering teams depend onfrom autonomy engineers who need high-fidelity sensor data to systems engineers who monitor fleet health to data scientists who train the next generation of ML models. You will make critical architectural decisions about how data flows through our system from collection on embedded hardware to cloud storage and beyond.
Our technical stack spans embedded Linux systems running Rust microcontrollers with real-time firmware and cloud-based data services. We are hiring for engineers who bring embedded systems expertise combined with strong data engineering fundamentals.
WHAT YOULL DO
Build the Embedded Data Platform
- Design and implement core data platform infrastructure that runs onboard our drone fleet providing reliable APIs and tools for engineering teams to instrument their systems
- Build high-performance data collection and processing pipelines on resource-constrained embedded Linux systems
- Create reusable frameworks and platforms that make it easy for engineering teams to collect data vital to improving their systems
- Design intelligent data management systems that prioritize critical telemetry data efficiently process sensor data and make real-time decisions about what data to store
- Design data protocols and formats that enable seamless integration with cloud processing and ML pipelines
Optimize for Scale and Reliability
- Optimize data pipelines for resource-constrained compute nodes and reduce the need for processing data offboard entirely
- Implement onboard data retention policies that balance storage constraints with debugging and compliance requirements
- Build monitoring and observability into the platform itself to detect issues track usage patterns and enable troubleshooting
- Design systems that gracefully handle edge cases network failures and resource constraints while maintaining data integrity
Cross-Cutting Responsibilities
- Work closely with avionics autonomy and systems engineers to understand data requirements and build platform features that serve their needs
- Collaborate with backend data teams to ensure telemetry handoff meets requirements for fleet analytics data processing and model training
- Develop tools for analyzing data flow characteristics identifying bottlenecks and troubleshooting platform issues
- Build hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure to validate the data platform under realistic conditions
- Participate in and lead design reviews to ensure data observability and platform integration are considered in new features
WHAT YOULL BRING
Were looking for engineers with strong backend and data infrastructure experience who are excited to work closer to the hardware and embedded systems.
Required
- 5 years of professional software engineering experience with strong proficiency in Rust or similar systems languages
- Proven experience building backend services APIs and data infrastructure at scale preferably with exposure to high-throughput data pipelines or streaming systems
- Strong foundation in data systems architecture: serialization formats message queues distributed systems concepts and real-time data processing
- Experience designing platform infrastructure or developer tools that other engineering teams depend on with clear APIs and comprehensive documentation
- Track record of diagnosing and resolving complex technical issues in production: performance bottlenecks race conditions data inconsistencies or system reliability problems
- Demonstrated ability to learn new technical domains quickly and apply engineering principles to novel problem spaces
- Strong technical communication skills with examples of design documents RFCs or technical proposals that influenced system architecture
Strongly Preferred
- Experience with embedded Linux IoT systems edge computing or other resource-constrained environments
- Background in robotics autonomous systems hardware integration or other domains bridging software and physical systems
- Familiarity with real-time systems concepts performance profiling memory management or low-level optimization
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS GCP Azure) and infrastructure-as-code
- Track record working on safety-critical highly regulated or mission-critical systems where reliability is paramount.
bout Zipline
About the Role
Zipline operates the worlds largest autonomous logistics system (ground or air) and in the coming year we will be hyper-scaling from thousands to tens of thousands of carefully coordinated drone deliveries in several dense dynamic U.S. metros. Our Autonomy Motion Planning team is looking for a Senior/Staff Software Engineer who is passionate about developing autonomous systems for the real world. This role will explore cutting-edge approaches to decision making and trajectory planning that will enable more accurate and timely deliveries putting you in the position to make critical product decisions that will shape our future architectures.
What Youll Do
Build real-time trajectory generation and decision-making for autonomous flight (search-based sampling MPC convex/non-convex optimization).
Design collision avoidance and large-scale multi-agent planning (fleet deconfliction airspace rules traffic management) that scales to 10000 flights/day.
Tackle joint optimization across safety energy time and reliabilitybalancing mission goals with vehicle/airspace constraints.
Plan in uncertain environments with complex dynamics: chance-constraints robustness to wind/turbulence degraded sensors and partial observability.
Extend the autonomy stack for new aircraft and payloads; define clean interfaces with perception and controls.
Prove it before flight: scenario libraries SIL/HIL large-scale sim log replay and fault-injection.
Mine real fleet data to validate safety metrics (separation risk intervention rate) improve models and burn down long-tail failure modes.
Continuously reduce cost/latency (vectorization warm starts smart heuristics) while raising reliability.
What Youll Bring
- Masters degree in Computer Science or related field and 3 years of experience building software for safety-critical systems (aerospace/AV/robotics/medical).
Strong in Rust/C/C for real-time fault-tolerant code on embedded/Linux.
Depth in planning & search (A*/ anytime / RRT*/sampling) trajectory optimization/MPC or multi-agent deconflictionshipped on real robots/vehicles.
Hands-on with simulation at scale SIL/HIL log replay and metrics-driven validation.
Evidence of shipping production-grade autonomy through ambiguous noisy conditionsowning the last mile to reliability.
Systems thinker who collaborates tightly with perception controls and flight ops; crisp docs and design reviews.
Why Join Now
Impact at scale: Your planner wont benchmark in isolationit will fly thousands of missions/day delivering essential goods.
Technical frontier: Real-time multi-agent autonomy joint optimization and robustness under uncertainty at a scale few have seen.
Ownership: High-leverage IC roleyour decisions shape Ziplines flight stack and the behavior of a global fleet.
Category leadership: Help define the standard for safe reliable autonomous flight in the real world.
What Else You Need to Know
Required Experience:
IC
Key Skills
- Dermatology
- Accomodation
- Corporate Marketing
- Corporate Risk Management
- Civil Quality Control
- Computer Engineering
About Company
Zipline is the world's largest autonomous delivery system, specializing in on-demand drone delivery and instant logistics.
