Senior Real-Time Autonomy & Trajectory Planning Engineer

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to advance autonomous flight systems. You will develop real-time trajectory generation, decision-making, and integrate with perception, controls, and flight ops to enable safe, reliable deliveries.

You will tackle planning under uncertainty, validate with large-scale sim, SIL/HIL, and operate across safety-critical constraints, energy, and timing.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science or related field with at least 3 years of experience in safety-critical software (aerospace/AV/robotics).
• Proficiency in Rust, C++, and C for real-time embedded/Linux systems.
• Strong background in planning and search algorithms (A*, RRT*, sampling) and trajectory optimization.
• Experience with large-scale simulation, SIL/HIL, log replay, and metrics-driven validation.
• Evidence shipping production-grade autonomy in noisy, ambiguous conditions and ensuring reliability.
• Collaborative systems thinker working with perception, controls, and flight operations; clear documentation and design reviews.

Responsibilities

• Build real-time trajectory generation and decision-making for autonomous flight.
• Tackle joint optimization across safety, energy, time, and reliability with vehicle constraints.
• Plan in uncertain environments with wind, degraded sensors, and partial observability.
• Design safety-critical software for obstacle avoidance and human interfaces during delivery.
• Extend the autonomy stack for new aircraft and payloads with clean interfaces.
• Prove readiness before flight via large-scale sim, SIL/HIL, log replay, fault-injection.
• Mine fleet data to validate safety metrics and reduce long-tail failure modes.

Skills

Rust

C++

C

Planning & search

Trajectory optimization

Simulation at scale

SIL/HIL

Log replay

Metrics-driven validation

Production-grade autonomy

Cross-functional collaboration

Documentation

Education

Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Zipline in South San Francisco is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to advance autonomous flight systems. You will develop real-time trajectory generation, decision-making, and integrate with perception, controls, and flight ops to enable safe, reliable deliveries.

You will tackle planning under uncertainty, validate with large-scale sim, SIL/HIL, and operate across safety-critical constraints, energy, and timing.