Autonomous Flight Controls Intern

Socket.dev; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 33,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

In-person internship

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking an intern for the Flight Controls team to learn how we fly autonomous aircraft in challenging conditions. You’ll use flight test data and simulations from our global fleet to identify insights that improve design and, as a result, your work will fly from concept to concrete results.

This full-time, in-person Summer 2027 internship offers hands-on experience with vehicle controllers, data analysis, and collaboration with engineers.

Qualifications

• Applied mathematics skills relevant to aerospace engineering.
• Enjoy simulations and hardware work.
• Have owned and developed controls solutions in a team project, thesis, or competition.
• Exposure to inertial navigation, dynamic modeling, linear or optimal control.
• Experience in embedded software and technical computing; GitHub teamwork.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and release flight algorithms for vehicle controllers.
• Create tools and tests to demonstrate performance and prevent regressions.
• Develop simulation and controls analysis tools to predict performance and prove safety.
• Analyze flight data to assess changes and identify regressions.
• Design onboard integrity tests to signal degraded performance.
• Present results and changes to the engineering team.

Skills

Applied math

Simulations

Controls development

Inertial navigation

Control theory

Embedded software

GitHub teamwork

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a related field

Tools

C/C++/Rust

MATLAB

Python

Julia

GitHub

Job description

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking an intern for the Flight Controls team to learn how we fly autonomous aircraft in challenging conditions. You’ll use flight test data and simulations from our global fleet to identify insights that improve design and, as a result, your work will fly from concept to concrete results.

This full-time, in-person Summer 2027 internship offers hands-on experience with vehicle controllers, data analysis, and collaboration with engineers.