Flight Test Engineer Intern (Summer 2027)

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 34,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline is seeking a Flight Test Engineering Intern to analyze flight test data logs and contribute to the design of new flight test campaigns. You will work with engineers across domains to validate autonomous systems, analyze performance trends, and help ensure mission‑critical robustness in a real-world, fast-growing environment.

The internship is full-time, in-person at our South San Francisco office, with potential relocation support and housing stipend.

Qualifications

• You must have completed the second year of your undergraduate studies in physics, mathematics, mechanical, aerospace, system engineering, computer science, electrical engineering or related fields.
• Strong mathematical and physics background.
• Experience in autonomous vehicle/ robotic system integration and testing work.
• Experience in data process, visualization.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Analyze flight test data logs using Python, SQL, and Databricks to identify anomalies and trends.
• Design, oversee, and review software validation and flight test campaigns to ensure features perform as intended.
• Daily monitor the develop branch to surface instability and potential issues.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (GNC, Aerodynamics, Structures, Systems Engineering) to meet system requirements.
• Develop novel test infrastructure and instrumentation to support flight testing and data collection.
• Maintain documentation, dashboards, and SQL queries to track test progress and efficiency.
• Support flight operations and potentially supervise flight activities with the operations team.

Job description

About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.

Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.

We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real‑world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.

About The Flight Test Engineering Team

Zipline’s Flight Test Engineering team is a specialized group that designs flight test courses and methods to support our overall system validation progress. This involves developing custom flight control software for complex maneuvers and collaborating with development engineers to design rigorous tests for all critical edge cases.

We leverage expertise in system design, statistics, flight physics, and sound experimental methods to ensure our flight tests are effective and safe. The team partners closely with Controls and Dynamics, Embedded Software, Autonomy, Systems Engineering, Powertrain, Structure, and Flight Operations teams to build comprehensive test plans and test cards.

Our work spans simulation, hardware testing, data-driven analysis, and system‑level evaluations that support deployments across the globe. As an intern, you’ll collaborate with engineers across these domains, gaining hands‑on exposure to how industry‑leading autonomous systems are designed, tested, and validated at scale.

The Role

As a Flight Test Engineering Intern, you will be instrumental in analyzing flight test data logs to determine test effectiveness, identify success/failure root causes, and track performance trends.

You will also directly contribute to the design of new flight test campaigns, collaborating with other engineers to define the test scope, test method, and data post‑processing.

This is a unique opportunity for someone excited to learn how complex robotic systems are validated, who enjoys problem‑solving, and who wants to build real‑world experience working with autonomy software, data analysis, and systems engineering.

What You’ll Do

• Analyze flight test data logs using custom scripts (Python, DataBricks, SQL) to identify anomalies, assess reliability, track performance trends, and perform regression analyses.
• Design, oversee the execution, and review the results of software validation and flight test campaigns to ensure new features perform as intended and prevent hardware/software regression.
• Daily test and monitor the develop branch to quickly surface instability and potential future issues.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional partners (GNC, Aerodynamics, Structures, Systems Engineering) to ensure system‑level requirements (e.g., acceleration, range, climb rate) are clear, measurable, and that vehicle changes are mature for flight testing.
• Define or develop novel test infrastructure, including application‑based tools to support flight testing, new instrumentation systems (e.g., load cells, vision systems). or modified flight control software, to collect auxiliary data in flight.
• Establish and maintain documentation, dashboards, and SQL search queries to track test progress and operational efficiency.
• Be ready to directly own any aspect of flight operations (preflight, launch, flight maneuvers, incident reporting) or supervise these activities with the flight operations team.

What You’ll Bring

• You must have completed the second year of your undergraduate studies in physics, mathematics, mechanical, aerospace, system engineering, computer science, electrical engineering or related fields. Masters and PhD students are also eligible.
• Strong mathematical and physics background.
• Experience in autonomous vehicle/ robotic system integration and testing work.
• Experience in data process, visualization.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

What Else You Should Know

This internship is a full‑time position, in‑person at our South San Francisco office. We will host our Summer 2027 interns from May/June to August/September.

Additional benefits may include relocation support, a housing stipend, overtime pay, paid sick time, and other benefits, where applicable and subject to local requirements.

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.

Zipline is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your point of contact at Zipline know if you require any accommodations throughout your interview process.

Voluntary Self‑Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.