Aircraft Software Integration Intern (Spring 2027) at Zipline

Seniority: Intern

Zipline operates an autonomous drone delivery network designed to deliver food, medicine, and essential goods. The Aircraft Software Integration Intern will integrate autonomy features across embedded flight software, real-time behavior logic, mission-critical runtime systems, simulation, telemetry, and flight operations. The role also involves implementing vehicle software, developing validation tooling, and defining metrics for safe and reliable autonomous flight.

Responsibilities

• Work on integration of complex autonomy features, spanning embedded flight software, real-time behavior logic, and mission-critical runtime systems
• Implement core vehicle software in Rust, with a focus on performance, safety, and observability in safety-critical environments
• Develop tooling to support validation, including software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing for rapid iteration and safe experimentation
• Partner with systems engineering and autonomy teams to define real-world success metrics and build the interfaces and logging infrastructure to track them

Qualifications

• Experience developing software in **robotics, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or other safety-critical embedded systems**
• Experience in **Rust, C++, or C**
• Strong systems-thinking mindset, with an interest to integrate cross-disciplinary software under tight constraints (e.g. timing, safety, power)
• Hands-on experience with **robotics testing**, including simulation
• Ability and interest to work cross-functionally across different domains (hardware, software, cloud)
• A go-getter attitude - motivation to get things and find the answers to make it happen

Tech stack

Rust, C++, C, Embedded Systems, Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Safety-Critical Systems, Software Integration, Real-Time Systems, Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) Testing, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Testing, Simulation

Benefits

• Housing stipend
• Overtime pay
• Relocation support
• Paid sick time