Autonomy 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 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.

About You & the Role

Own the flight-critical runtime that keeps Zipline aircraft in a known safe stateno matter what the world throws at them. Youll architect and ship the autonomy safety layer that orchestrates missions detects/diagnoses faults and executes mitigation and recovery across planning perception and controls. This is deep systems work in Rust/C with tight real-time constraints: youll make high-judgment design decisions prove them in SIL/HIL and flight logs and raise the bar on reliability for a global safety-critical fleet.

What Youll Do

• Design the mission/flight manager: build the state machines and orchestration logic that govern mission sequencing safe-state transitions and behavior gating under latency and resource constraints.

• Own fault management end-to-end: implement detection isolation mitigation and recovery (FIMR) for sensors compute comms power and actuation; ensure graceful degradation and continuity of service.

• Ship flight-critical Rust/C: develop and maintain core onboard components with strong observability (health logs metrics) and testability (deterministic replay assertions invariants).

• Prove safety before flight: define success criteria and build the toolingscenario libraries SIL/HIL log-replay harnesses fault-injectionto validate behaviors across edge cases and long-tail conditions.

• Integrate across autonomy: partner with planning perception and controls to set interfaces hazards/assumptions and escalation paths; codify contracts that the runtime enforces.

• Close the loop with operations: turn fleet telemetry and incident reviews into requirements and fixes; drive MTBF/MTTR improvements and intervention-rate reductions.

• Lead with systems judgment: write design docs perform hazard analysis (e.g. FMEA/STPA-style) run design/PR reviews and mentor engineers on deep-stack ownership.

What Youll Bring

• 8 years building production software for robotics aerospace AV or other safety-critical embedded systems.

• Expert in Rust and/or C (C as a plus) for real-time fault-tolerant applications on embedded Linux/RTOS.

• Demonstrated systems thinking: clear interface design resource budgeting and trade-offs under timing/safety/power constraints.

• Hands-on with SIL/HIL scenario validation log replay and fault injection; you measure reliability not just functionality.

• Track record of shipping autonomy features (mission logic supervision watchdogs health monitoring) into noisy dynamic real-world environments.

• Comfort in HW/SW co-design: you can reason about sensors compute comms and actuators well enough to make robust software decisions.

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

Not the Right Fit If

• Your background is primarily web/backend/app platforms with limited embedded or autonomy exposure.

• You prefer building general cloud tooling over flight-critical runtime software that directly governs vehicles.

At Zipline your code will decidenot just observe. If youre ready to own the runtime that keeps aircraft safe while we scale autonomous delivery worldwide wed love to talk.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

This will be anin-officerole based out of our South San Francisco HQs.

The starting cash range for this role is$200000 - $265000; please note that this is a target starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. We are always open to negotiation. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors including a specific candidates experience qualifications skills working location and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; overtime pay; 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 religion age sex national origin disability status genetics protected veteran status sexual orientation gender identity or expression or any other characteristic protected by federal state or local laws or our own sensibilities.

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!