Senior Flight-Critical Embedded Software Engineer

RiseMe; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Equity compensation

Paid time off

Job summary

Zipline is hiring for a role at the hardware/software boundary, delivering flight- and safety-critical embedded software on Linux. You will own avionics subsystems and drive production readiness for a distributed fleet, impacting aircraft reliability and mission success.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems, strong C++/Rust skills, and a proven track record in fault management and deterministic real-time requirements.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience shipping embedded production code in C++ or Rust.
• Experience with embedded Linux and flight-critical systems.
• Ability to read schematics and bring up peripherals from datasheets.
• Proven track record in fault management and deterministic real-time requirements.
• Willingness to travel to flight-test sites.
• Bachelor’s degree in EE/CS or equivalent, 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end avionics subsystems (GNSS, Cellular, IMU) and deliver production-ready code.
• Ship flight- and safety-critical code on embedded Linux with drivers and bring-up.
• Define reliability outcomes and instrument flight-data for regressions.
• Lead hardware-in-the-loop, bench, and field validation with cross-functional teams.
• Build tooling for deterministic tests, logging, and regression suites.
• Triage high-severity field incidents and drive RCA to fleet metric resolution.
• Collaborate with hardware, systems, manufacturing and flight operations on release criteria.

Skills

C++

Rust

Embedded Linux

Real-time systems

Debugging hardware

Ownership of subsystems

Travel occasionally

Education

Bachelor’s degree in EE/CS or equivalent

Tools

Oscilloscopes

Logic analyzers

JTAG

Job description

Zipline is hiring for a role at the hardware/software boundary, delivering flight- and safety-critical embedded software on Linux. You will own avionics subsystems and drive production readiness for a distributed fleet, impacting aircraft reliability and mission success.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems, strong C++/Rust skills, and a proven track record in fault management and deterministic real-time requirements.