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.
Our Flight Controls team is at the heart of Zipline’s product success - we are responsible for developing, testing and maintaining some of the critical flight software systems that enable our aircraft to complete missions autonomously, from takeoff through to predicting and executing a successful delivery, through to landing safely and accurately. We develop novel solutions to give us the responsiveness, robustness and quality we need to ensure our delivery platforms can function in a wide range of increasingly challenging conditions and truly serve everyone in the world equally.
The RoleZipline’s people thrive on finding elegant solutions to complex problems, given what exists today and what we can develop to maturity quickly and confidently. We stay close to our customers, learn what really works, and find where we can put the leverage to make a big difference for them now.
As an intern on the Flight Controls team, you will learn how we fly autonomous aircraft in a range of challenging flight conditions. Using data from flight testing and simulation as well as our global fleet of customer aircraft, you will be looking for insights that can help improve our design. Through this you’ll have the opportunity to make changes to our systems that will measurably improve our product - your work will not just be theoretical; you will have the opportunity to see your contributions fly!
What You'll Do
- Contribute to the design, implementation, testing and release of innovative flight algorithms that improve the operational performance of our vehicle controllers
- Create tools and tests to demonstrate your design performance and protect against software regressions, using both theoretical guarantees and simulations
- Develop and improve simulation and other controls analysis tools so we can predict vehicle performance ahead of time and prove safety and reliability
- Analyze flight data to assess recent changes and upgrades, looking for regressions and potential areas for future improvement
- Design onboard integrity tests to communicate when the system performance is degraded
- Present key results and changes to the broader engineering team
- Your applied math skills stand out even among aerospace engineers.
- You think simulations and working with hardware are both fun.
- You have owned and developed controls solutions for a team project, thesis, or competition
- Exposure in one or more of the following areas: precision integrated inertial navigation, dynamic modeling of complex systems, linear control analysis, or optimal control with uncertainty.
- Software engineering skills, preferably with both embedded software (C, C++, Rust) and technical computing (MATLAB, python, Julia, etc.). Experience with Github and working in a multi-developer environment is an advantage.
Our internships are full-time positions, in-person at our South San Francisco or Dallas office. We will host our Spring 2027 interns from January - April/May.
Candidates are limited to three (3) applications within a 30-day period.
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!
Zipline is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your point of contact at Zipline know if you require any accommodations throughout your interview process.
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.
Skills Required
- Strong applied mathematics skills
- Enjoyment of simulations and working with hardware
- Experience owning and developing controls solutions for a team project, thesis, or competition
- Exposure to precision integrated inertial navigation, dynamic modeling of complex systems, linear control analysis, or optimal control with uncertainty
- Software engineering skills with embedded software and technical computing
- Experience with C, C++, or Rust for embedded software
- Experience with MATLAB, Python, Julia, or similar technical computing tools
- Experience with GitHub and multi-developer environments
Zipline Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Zipline and has not been reviewed or approved by Zipline.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is consistently described as comprehensive and high quality, with multiple plan choices, low out‑of‑pocket costs, and additions like HRA, One Medical, and fertility support.
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Parental & Family Support — Parental and family leave is highlighted as generous and meaningfully used, reinforcing support for major life events.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off, sick days, and holidays are portrayed as solid and broadly available, contributing to overall benefits depth.
Zipline Insights
What We Do
Zipline is the world's largest autonomous delivery network and is powered entirely by fixed-wing drones. Our fleet circles the equivalent distance of the equator every 2.5 days, and we have shipped hundreds of thousands of critical medical products across Rwanda, Ghana, and now beginning in the United States.
Why Work With Us
Zipline is the perfect intersection of super cutting-edge tech, deep social mission, and extremely compelling business case. Our small, scrappy, customer-obsessed, humble, and mission-driven team has set the bar for what is possible in the drone logistics industry globally, and has designed some incredibly elegant technology in the process.
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