Senior Validation & Test Infrastructure Engineer

Namely; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in California is seeking a Senior Software Systems Validation Engineer to lead end-to-end evaluation from simulation through full-system flight testing. You will bridge Systems Engineering and Software Development, owning validation strategy and evidence that exposes capability gains, gaps, regressions, and safety risks.

You will design scenarios, build metrics and tools, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure robust validation and safe deployment at scale.

Qualifications

• Degree in CS/Software/Systems/Aerospace or related field.
• 3+ years of software development or validation experience for robotic systems.
• Experience in embedded Linux, perception, motion planning, navigation, control, or power management.
• Experience validating autonomous robotics with nominal, adversarial, stress, and edge-case scenarios.
• Experience root-causing failures in complex autonomous systems and analyzing large production datasets.

Responsibilities

• Define system-level validation strategy for software performance, reliability, and safety.
• Design, implement, and execute validation scenarios from simulation through full-system flight testing.
• Build metrics, visualizations, and monitors to reveal capability changes and regressions.
• Set validation evidence and exit criteria for release, deployment, and expansion decisions.
• Debug failures across simulation, hardware, firmware, embedded software, and application software.
• Collaborate with test infrastructure and data platforms to improve automated validation coverage and efficiency.

Skills

Embedded Linux

Robotics validation

Python

SQL

C/C++

Safety-critical development

Risk assessment

Education

BSc or MSc in CS/Software/Systems/Aerospace

Tools

MISRA C

Rust

C++

Job description

Zipline in California is seeking a Senior Software Systems Validation Engineer to lead end-to-end evaluation from simulation through full-system flight testing. You will bridge Systems Engineering and Software Development, owning validation strategy and evidence that exposes capability gains, gaps, regressions, and safety risks.

You will design scenarios, build metrics and tools, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure robust validation and safe deployment at scale.