Drone Propulsion Firmware Engineer

Candidate; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity compensation

Medical, dental & vision insurance

Job summary

Zipline in San Francisco seeks a Motor Control Engineer to ship high-performance motor controller firmware for Zipline’s propulsion systems. You’ll work with hardware, flight software, and test teams, using C++ on bare-metal ARM, with Rust/Python tools for support and data analysis.

You’ll validate features through hardware-in-the-loop tests, build simulations in Rust, and contribute to safety-critical flight software reliability. On-site in South San Francisco, CA.

Qualifications

• Fluency in C/C++, and interest in Rust and Python.
• Mastery of nonlinear estimation techniques and classical control theory.
• Experience in safety-critical embedded environments is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design estimators and controllers for propulsion motors and actuators with the vehicle controls team.
• Implement controllers in C++, targeting a bare-metal ARM microcontroller.
• Write peripheral drivers for motor controller hardware revisions.
• Validate firmware on bench and in flight tests.
• Improve flight software reliability with hardware-in-the-loop tests.
• Build vehicle simulations in Rust to validate firmware.
• Collaborate with electrical engineers on inverter designs.
• Maintain automated systems to monitor fleet performance.

Skills

C/C++

Rust

Python

Embedded systems

Tools

MATLAB

Julia

Python

Job description

Zipline in San Francisco seeks a Motor Control Engineer to ship high-performance motor controller firmware for Zipline’s propulsion systems. You’ll work with hardware, flight software, and test teams, using C++ on bare-metal ARM, with Rust/Python tools for support and data analysis.

You’ll validate features through hardware-in-the-loop tests, build simulations in Rust, and contribute to safety-critical flight software reliability. On-site in South San Francisco, CA.