About Zipline

Do you want to change the world? Zipline uses drones to deliver critical and lifesaving medicine to thousands of hospitals serving millions of people in multiple countries. Our mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. Join Zipline and help us make this a reality for billions of people.

About You and The Role

Does using computer vision to locate and deliver to millions of patients excite you? Do you wield your favorite programming language to slay problems from kernel bugs to false positives? Do you look at real-time, safety-critical systems, immediately expose potential weaknesses, and then open a pull request that fixes the problem? At Zipline our work is intended for the field. Patients are counting on it today--there is no time for aiming low or for coming up short. 

Zipline was founded by engineers dedicated to making the world a better place. We are scaling around the world and are looking for a talented embedded systems engineer to join our already exceptional team. You will build state-of-the-art perception systems, develop elegant solutions to complex problems, and improve the reach of a platform that already helps save lives every day. 

Engineers come into the office as needed during the pandemic. As public health restrictions are lifted, we are excited to collaborate and innovate together in-person at our office in South San Francisco!

Zipline designs and operates the world’s largest drone delivery service providing access to critical medical supplies. Leading the way in drone delivery often means exceeding the capabilities of what’s available off the shelf, and as a result we are engineering the majority of our system in-house. Inventing new robots and doubling down on the reliability of our systems is the critical path to delivering to our next billion customers--people whose lives will be meaningfully affected by smarter, more equitable access. Zipliners are forces of nature: We have been able to achieve things that most believe to be impossible.

What You'll Do

• Build high-performance, real-time, safety-critical embedded software systems from kernel to neural network
• Work across team boundaries to build efficient solutions to challenging perception problems
• Continuously improve development and test tools and processes so our systems get better rapidly and never regress
• Hold a high bar for technical quality through code review and process, creating a maintainable code base over time
• Support the design of electromechanical systems through component selection, design trades, and experiments

What You'll Bring

• Strong skills in embedded software. We write Rust and C++ on Embedded Linux, and we work with hardware from i2c to GPUs. We train networks and analyze data with industry-standard Python tools.
• A passion for optimization and using hardware accelerators to scratch out every ounce of performance that your silicon can offer
• War stories from building distributed systems where any component could fail at any time--without compromising performance
• Experience deploying computer vision in the real world--and in turn, learning from every “experience” your vehicle encounters
• The ability to write highly-reliable software: real-time, safety-critical, autonomous systems deployed at massive scale
• The bravery required to dive deep into every problem and find simple solutions which stand the test of time, whether they involve the schematic or the code
• Ability to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area, or travel on a monthly basis to spend time with the team in person

The ideal candidate may not have all of the skills and experience listed above. If any of these apply, you might be a good fit!

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!

If you’d like to learn more about Zipline and our teams, feel free to check out our Instagram, one of our Reddit AMA’s, or our website!