Back to jobs
tags.new

Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer - Long Range Platform

South San Francisco, California, USA

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

Senior Embedded Software Engineer on the Long Range Platform (South San Francisco). You will own low-level and edge software that makes our long-range aircraft safe, reliable, and operable across a production delivery network. This role sits at the hardware/software boundary: you will be accountable for flight- and safety-critical embedded stacks running on embedded RTOS systems, and for the diagnostics and validation infrastructure that proves those stacks in the field. Your work directly affects aircraft reliability, mission completion rate, and field-maintenance load across a distributed fleet.

What You'll Do

  • Own one or more end-to-end embedded subsystems (firmware, drivers, runtime, monitoring) for the long-range platform and be the primary technical owner for design, implementation, and production readiness.
  • Deliver and maintain flight- and safety-critical code on microcontrollers (bare-metal/RTOS): drivers, device bring-up, real-time control interfaces, fault management, and graceful degradation logic.
  • Define and ship measurable reliability and observability outcomes (MTTR, mission success rate, in-field fault rates, test coverage targets). Instrument systems so flight-data can be used to detect regressions and prioritize fixes.
  • Lead hardware-in-the-loop, bench, and field validation for changes you introduce; partner with systems, hardware, test engineering, and operations to create repeatable test plans and failure-insertion exercises.
  • Build and extend tooling for deterministic test, logging, post-flight analysis, and automated regression tests to accelerate safe deployments across the fleet.
  • Triage and resolve high-severity field incidents: drive RCA, implement fixes, and own follow-through until fleet metrics demonstrate resolution.
  • Collaborate closely with avionics, systems engineering, manufacturing, and flight operations to set integration boundaries, certification inputs, and release criteria for software changes.

What You'll Bring

  • Title/level: Senior Embedded Software Engineer as stated. Location: South San Francisco HQ
  • Must-have technical skills: substantial systems-level experience shipping embedded production code in C++ or Rust; strong familiarity with Python for test/telemetry tooling. Experience with bare-metal and RTOS environments is required; experience with embedded linux is nice to have. 
  • Production & safety experience: proven track record deploying and operating embedded software in safety- or mission-critical systems (aviation, robotics, industrial controls, or similar). Experience with fault management, deterministic real-time requirements, and validation strategies is required.
  • Debugging & hardware bring-up: demonstrated ability to read schematics, bring up peripherals from datasheets, and debug hardware/software interaction using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and in-field telemetry.
  • Ownership & outcomes: history of owning subsystem delivery end-to-end, shipping repeatable test suites, and meeting quantified reliability targets (provide examples in interview).
  • Logistics & intensity: comfortable with field testing cadence, occasional travel to flight-test sites, and participating in incident response outside standard hours when critical fleet incidents occur.
  • Education & experience: bachelor’s degree in EE/CS or equivalent experience; typically 5+ years in embedded/flight-critical systems OR equivalent demonstrated impact.

What Else You Need to Know

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. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

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.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.