Staff Software Engineer

About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced autonomous delivery service, founded to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to 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 including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and commercial products. Our customers include healthcare systems, governments, retailers, and global brands who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide new logistics services at scale.

Our technology goes beyond drones. We deploy integrated logistics infrastructure that strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and enables instant delivery, transforming how essential goods reach people everywhere. 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.

About You and The Role  

Zipline is expanding our autonomous drone delivery network around the world, helping people get what they need, no matter where they live. As part of this expansion, Zipline is building technology to safely and efficiently integrate our drones into complex airspace across the globe. This technology is our key enabler to safely interoperate with other commercial drone companies and existing airspace users. 

We’re looking for world-class software engineers that thrive at launching new products and working through the ‘0 to 1’ phase. This is a unique opportunity to help shape how software and automation will enable a paradigm shift from human-centric management to machine-centric. 

Note: we do not expect you to have previous aviation experience, rather a passion for building safety-critical scalable products that are making a meaningful impact on the world.

What You'll Do  

• Define and build software as part of the team that's driving industry-first airspace management technologies (Unmanned Traffic Management, or UTM) to enable the world’s most active commercial drone network to further scale
• Build core services that enable equitable airspace access, flight deconfliction, and simulation across airspace users
• Build systems with a focus on correctness, testability, and auditability
• Contribute to development efforts across the full stack of our codebase, including end-to-end software development lifecycle, system design, implementation, validation, and rollout
• Engage in open-source community related to drone airspace management
• Mentor engineer team members and share best practices to level up a growing team

Basic Qualifications:

• 10+ years experience in software engineering designing secure and reliable real-time systems
• Desire to take on a foundational technical role and contribute to the direction of a new product line
• Experience designing APIs and sophisticated data models
• Experience building scalable and reliable distributed systems
• Experience deploying systems to cloud providers (AWS, Kubernetes)
• Support and mentor teammates through thoughtful code reviews, architectural guidance, and shared technical decision-making
• Strong product insights and empathy for the customer
• Excellent communication skills and a track record of owning problems end-to-end

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience integrating, and potentially contributing to open-source technologies
• Domain experience with software-defined physical products
• Experience in modern front-end technologies and major frameworks
• Support customer facing engagements and translate feedback into product insights