Embedded Software Engineer, Validation

Zipline is the worlds 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 worlds 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 worlds 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 weve 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 peoples 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.

We are looking for an Embedded Software Engineer to build the automated validation systems that ensure the reliability of the embedded platform powering autonomous aircraft operating in safety-critical environments.

This role sits within the Embedded Platform team which develops the foundational middleware and infrastructure used throughout the flight software stack. Our systems provide critical capabilities including interprocess communication (IPC) logging and observability communication bridges over-the-air (OTA) software updates and live telemetry between aircraft and cloud services.

As an Embedded Software Validation Engineer you will design and build the simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) infrastructure used to validate these platform services. Working closely with software engineers across the Flight Software organization you will develop comprehensive automated test scenarios that verify functionality performance reliability and fault tolerance before software reaches an aircraft.

This is a software engineering role focused on building scalable validation infrastructure not manual testing.

• Design implement and maintain automated validation infrastructure for embedded platform software
• Build simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test environments that exercise platform services under realistic operating conditions
• Develop automated test scenarios covering core platform capabilities including:
• interprocess communication (IPC)
• logging and observability
• communication bridges
• over-the-air (OTA) update systems
• live telemetry and cloud connectivity
• Design tests that validate functionality reliability performance and behavior under fault conditions
• Develop stress endurance regression and fault-injection test suites for distributed embedded systems
• Partner closely with Embedded Platform engineers throughout the software development lifecycle to improve testability and define validation strategies during feature design
• Build tooling for automated test orchestration execution reporting and dashboards
• Contribute to continuous integration pipelines and automated validation workflows
• Investigate failures across simulation HIL and production environments to identify root causes
• Occasionally contribute improvements to production embedded software that increase reliability observability or testability
• Build automated validation infrastructure that enables engineers to rapidly verify platform changes with confidence
• Increase coverage of simulation and HIL testing across the Embedded Platform stack
• Identify reliability and performance issues before they reach flight hardware
• Improve the observability and testability of core middleware through close collaboration with platform engineers
• Enable the Flight Software organization to move faster while maintaining the reliability expected of safety-critical systems

• Experience developing embedded or systems software
• Professional experience with Rust Python or similar programming languages
• Experience working with embedded Linux systems
• Strong understanding of systems-level concepts including:
• concurrency
• networking
• interprocess communication
• distributed or multi-process systems
• Experience designing automated test frameworks or validation infrastructure
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills across software and hardware boundaries
• Ability to collaborate closely with software engineers to improve system quality and testability

• Experience building Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) or simulation-based validation systems
• Experience in safety-critical or high-reliability industries such as aerospace automotive robotics industrial systems or medical devices
• Experience with autonomous systems or robotics
• Experience validating distributed embedded systems
• Familiarity with OTA update systems observability platforms or telemetry infrastructure
• Experience with performance testing stress testing fault injection or resilience testing
• Experience building automated test orchestration dashboards and reporting systems
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems for embedded software development

You enjoy understanding how complex systems behave and are motivated by building the infrastructure that makes them more reliable. You see testing as an engineering discipline not a separate phase of development and enjoy writing software that uncovers subtle system interactions before they become production problems. You are comfortable working across embedded software simulation hardware and automation and you enjoy collaborating with engineers to design systems that are both robust and testable.

The starting cash ranges for this role is $160000 - $250000. Please note that this is a target starting cash range for a candidate who meets the minimum qualifications for this role. The final cash pay for this role will depend on a variety of factors including a specific candidates experience qualifications skills working location and projected impact. The total compensation package for this role may also include: equity compensation; discretionary annual or performance bonuses; sales incentives; benefits such as medical dental and vision insurance; paid time off; and more. This position may be hired at one of three levels based on the candidates experience skills and demonstrated scope:

• Software Engineer II: $160000 - $190000
• Senior Software Engineer: $190000 - $220000
• Staff Software Engineer: $220000 - $250000

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!

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.