Staff Embedded Software Engineer, Zipline
$170-210k
3-5 days a week in office
Transforming the way goods move
Open for applications
Transforming the way goods move
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$170-210k
3-5 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To open up access to emergency medical care to everyone in the world.
Role
Who you are
- Strong software engineering skills, with proficiency in at least one strongly typed language. We use Rust and C++ onboard, and python for tooling
- Excitement to contribute across the stack to solve problems from end-to-end. We use Yocto to build our in-house Linux distribution, and an RTOS on our microcontrollers
- Expertise in embedded systems development
- Strong software architecture skills, having designed and shipped solutions for complicated real-world use cases
- Strong technical leadership skills and experience owning large technical systems that other engineers will contribute to
What the job involves
- As a staff embedded software engineer at Zipline, you will be responsible for building the flight software that enables a highly maneuverable aircraft to safely fly over millions of homes and make deliveries day-in and day-out
- You will work closely with a range of other disciplines to ensure each aircraft seamlessly transitions from our manufacturing lines to being a participant in the largest drone delivery network in the world
- Design and build the software architecture necessary to run everything from critical flight software to inter-connected ground-based hardware on embedded Linux systems
- Develop kernel and userspace drivers for production and prototype sensors, and refine sensor data APIs for perception, navigation and other autonomy software engineers
- Design and build the software necessary to run critical flight and safety processes on a network of microcontrollers, from bootloaders to network drivers to embedded applications
- Analyze the runtime characteristics of our avionics software in flight to build confidence in its performance, focusing on re-usable, maintainable software and optimizing where required
- Understand and improve the reliability of the flight software system as a whole, working with hardware and systems engineers to develop comprehensive fault management strategies and hardware-in-the-loop tests
- Develop metrics, monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities to prepare the system for field deployment at scale
- Design and build data collection and testing tools to support early stage evaluation of new sensors, communications systems, and edge compute platforms
Our take
Zipline is transforming the way goods move by creating the first logistics system that serves all humans equally via a drone delivery service. As the first emergency drone logistics operation, Zipline is fundamentally changing how we transport emergency medical supplies and has expanded into commercial deliveries. It's partnered with several major companies, including Walmart.
Zipline has an edge over potential future competitors as the company has thousands of hours and over 35 million miles of flight to prove the system is safe and effective. It’s also one of the first companies to receive a full commercial operating certificate, putting Zipline in a strong position to continuously branch out to other markets.
The unicorn company operates globally and has signed its first government contract with Rwanda to provide up to 2 million drone deliveries by 2029. It is also aiming to start commercial deliveries to individual households in the near future. With big companies such as Amazon and Walmart examining “instant” delivery options, Zipline has a proven track record and the equipment and logistics in place to provide such services. 2023 funding pushed Zipline's valuation to a staggering $4.2 billion, indicating a bright future.
Kirsty
Company Specialist
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Apr 2023
$330m
SERIES F
Jul 2021
$250m
SERIES E
Total funding: $813.7m
Company benefits
- Generous parental leave
- Generous vacation policy
- Monthly wellness stipend
- Monthly team events
- Healthcare, vision, and dental
- Healthy, delicious meals and snacks
- Dog-friendly offices
Company values
- Customer obsession - The standard of care
- Ownership - Getting the job done
- Transparency - Breeds trust
- Continuous improvement - Tackling hard problems
- Serve Your Species - Empowering one another
Company HQ
South San Francisco, CA
Articles
Founders
Having studied Economics and Biotechnology at Harvard, they worked for almost 11 months as a self-employed rock climber. They combined their academic and practical experience to co-found Zipline in July 2011.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 28 more jobs at Zipline