Systems Validation Intern — Autonomous Drone Tech (SF)

Zipline; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 74,000 - 83,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Housing stipend

Relocation support

Job summary

Zipline’s Software Systems Validation Internship invites you to learn how autonomous drone software is tested and validated at scale. You’ll help build tests, validation tools, and visualizations that reveal system performance and reliability before flight.

You’ll collaborate with engineers across autonomy, systems engineering, and data platforms, gaining hands-on exposure to robotics, validation workflows, and real-world deployments at a global company.

Qualifications

• Must have completed the second year of undergraduate studies in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related field.
• Coursework or project experience in robotics, controls, estimation, navigation, perception, or software development.
• Familiarity with testing, debugging, or validation methodologies (academic or project-based experience counts)

Responsibilities

• Support the design and execution of test scenarios across the autonomous software stack to validate system-level requirements
• Help develop and improve validation tools, workflows, and automation
• Build visualizations or metrics that highlight performance trends, gaps, or regressions
• Work with test infrastructure and data platform teams to run validation pipelines
• Analyze results and contribute to identifying root causes of failures or unexpected behavior
• Document findings and communicate insights to engineering stakeholders

Skills

Python

SQL

Problem solving

Critical thinking

Education

Second year undergraduate in CS/SE/Robotics/AE

Masters or PhD eligible

Tools

C/C++

Rust

Testing frameworks

Job description

Zipline’s Software Systems Validation Internship invites you to learn how autonomous drone software is tested and validated at scale. You’ll help build tests, validation tools, and visualizations that reveal system performance and reliability before flight.

You’ll collaborate with engineers across autonomy, systems engineering, and data platforms, gaining hands-on exposure to robotics, validation workflows, and real-world deployments at a global company.