Responsibilities
- Build real-time trajectory generation and decision-making for autonomous flight using search-based, sampling-based, model-predictive, and convex or non-convex optimization approaches.
- Optimize safety, energy, time, and reliability while accounting for vehicle constraints.
- Plan for uncertain environments involving wind, turbulence, degraded sensors, and partial observability.
- Design safety-critical software for obstacle avoidance and interaction with people during package delivery and pickup.
- Extend the autonomy stack for new aircraft and payloads and define interfaces with perception and controls.
- Validate autonomy before flight using large-scale simulation, SIL/HIL, log replay, and fault injection.
- Analyze fleet data to validate safety metrics, improve models, and reduce long-tail failure modes.
Requirements
- Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
- At least 3 years of experience building software for safety-critical aerospace, autonomous vehicle, or robotics systems.
- Strong proficiency in Rust, C++, and C for real-time, fault-tolerant code on embedded Linux.
- Deep experience with planning, search, trajectory optimization, and model predictive control shipped on real robots or vehicles.
- Hands-on experience with large-scale simulation, SIL/HIL, log replay, and metrics-driven validation.
- Evidence of shipping production-grade autonomy software through ambiguous and noisy conditions.
- Ability to collaborate with perception, controls, and flight operations teams and contribute to technical documentation and design reviews.
About Zipline
Zipline was founded to create the first logistics system that serves all humans equally. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges. Leveraging expertise in robotics and autonomy, Zipline designs, manufactures and operates the world’s largest automated delivery system. Zipline serves tens of millions of people around the world and is making good on the promise of building an equitable and more resilient global supply chain. From powering Rwanda’s national blood delivery network and Ghana’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution, to providing on-demand home delivery for Walmart and enabling leading healthcare providers to bring care into the home in the United States, Zipline is transforming the way goods move. By transitioning to clean, electric, instant logistics, we can decarbonize delivery, decrease road congestion, and reduce fossil fuel consumption and air pollution, while providing equitable access for billions of people. The technology is complex but the idea is simple: a teleportation service that delivers what you need, when you need it. Zipline is inspiring people, governments, and businesses to imagine what is possible when goods can move as seamlessly as information. To join the team, check out our career page: https://flyzipline.com/careers/