Staff Software Engineer, Healthcare

Zipline; Indiana (PA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Paid time off

Bonuses

Job summary

Zipline is seeking an experienced software leader to own end-to-end software for fulfillment, maintenance, and flight workflows for operations in Africa. You will partner with operations, supply chain, and finance teams to simplify workflows and resolve high-impact user problems, while leading backend and frontend delivery from architecture to production rollout.

You will design modular, distributed, event-driven systems and build automated testing to protect critical workflows.

Qualifications

• 10+ years building production-grade distributed systems.
• Proficiency in Python or Go and React/JavaScript.
• Experience with distributed, event-driven systems using Kafka.
• Strong Postgres database modeling and performance tuning.
• Track record of designing simple, flexible, resilient software with automated testing.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers and leading design reviews.
• Willingness to travel 3–4 times a year to Africa, relocation a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end software for fulfillment, maintenance, and flight workflows that support Zipline operations in Africa.
• Partner with operations, supply chain, finance, and customer-facing teams to simplify workflows and resolve high-impact user problems.
• Lead backend and frontend delivery for major projects, from architecture through production rollout.
• Design modular distributed and event-driven systems adaptable to changing needs.
• Build automated unit, integration, and system testing for critical workflows.
• Improve production reliability, observability, and robustness for informed decision making.
• Raise engineering effectiveness through code reviews, standards, mentoring, and AI-assisted tooling.

Skills

Distributed systems

Python

Go

React/JavaScript

Event-driven architecture

Postgres

Mentoring

Tools

Kafka

Postgres

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 You And The Role

Zipline’s Nest Applications Software team builds the fulfillment, maintenance, and flight systems behind automated delivery operations in Africa. These systems manage medical inventory, order processing, flight coordination, supply-chain and financial workflows, and customer ordering and tracking.

What You’ll Do

• Own end-to-end software for fulfillment, maintenance, and flight workflows that support Zipline operations in Africa.
• Partner with operations, supply chain, finance, and customer-facing teams to simplify workflows and resolve high-impact user problems.
• Lead backend and frontend delivery for major projects, from architecture and data models through implementation and production rollout.
• Design modular distributed and event-driven systems that can adapt as operational and business needs change.
• Build automated unit, integration, and system testing that protects critical inventory, order, and flight-coordination workflows.
• Improve production reliability, observability, and robustness so teams can identify issues and make sound operational decisions.
• Raise engineering effectiveness through code review, design standards, mentoring, and AI-assisted development, testing, and operational workflows.

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years building and operating production-grade distributed systems.
• Deep full-stack development experience with Python, Go, or a similar object-oriented language, plus React or a comparable JavaScript framework.
• Experience architecting distributed, event-driven systems using Kafka or similar technologies.
• Strong database modeling and performance-tuning experience with Postgres.
• A track record of designing software that is simple, flexible, resilient, and supported by comprehensive automated testing.
• Experience making architectural decisions in a fast-changing operational environment and mentoring junior engineers through coaching, pairing, or design reviews.
• Ability to travel 3-4 times a year to visit our operations in Africa; desire to travel more extensively or to relocate near our operations is a plus.
• Experience with fulfillment, logistics, or warehouse systems is valued.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $180,000 - $270,000. Please note that this is a target, starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors, including a specific candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, working location, and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; overtime pay; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more.

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.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech.

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.