Autonomy Software Engineer Intern – Flight Systems

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 32,000 - 52,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Housing stipend

Relocation support

Paid sick time

Job summary

Zipline, a leader in autonomous drone delivery, seeks an Autonomy Software Engineer Intern to join the Software Integration Team in South San Francisco. You will help develop integrated autonomy features, bridging mission logic, real-time systems, and validation frameworks, with embedded aircraft software and simulation tools.

You will work across planning, perception, and controls, contributing to features like emergency landings and dynamic delivery constraints, while ensuring safety,

Qualifications

• Experience developing software in robotics, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or other safety-critical embedded systems.
• Experience in Rust, C++, or C.
• Hands-on experience with robotics testing, including simulation.

Responsibilities

• Work on integration of complex autonomy features, spanning embedded flight software, real-time behavior logic, and mission-critical runtime systems.
• Implement core vehicle software in Rust, with a focus on performance, safety, and observability in safety-critical environments.
• Develop tooling to support validation, including software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing for rapid iteration and safe experimentation.
• Partner with systems engineering and autonomy teams to define real-world success metrics and build the interfaces and logging infrastructure to track them.

Skills

Robotics software

Rust

C++

C

Systems thinking

Robotics testing

Cross-functional collaboration

Motivated / proactive

Tools

Rust

C++

C

Job description

Zipline, a leader in autonomous drone delivery, seeks an Autonomy Software Engineer Intern to join the Software Integration Team in South San Francisco. You will help develop integrated autonomy features, bridging mission logic, real-time systems, and validation frameworks, with embedded aircraft software and simulation tools.

You will work across planning, perception, and controls, contributing to features like emergency landings and dynamic delivery constraints, while ensuring safety,