Embedded Software Engineer Intern (Fall 2026)

About the Embedded Team

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 need to engineer the majority of our system in-house. Doubling down on the reliability of our systems by writing embedded applications and drivers close to the hardware is a critical path to delivering to people whose lives will be meaningfully affected by smarter, more equitable access!

We trust our team, so we’ll trust you. We’ll help you (and you’ll help us) find an area of technical ownership that you can dive deep into to define system requirements, develop creative and simple solutions, and prove with testing and data that your system meets the rigors and edge-cases of real-world deployment. We are a team that is constantly learning to improve our systems, and ourselves, and we can’t wait for you to join us!

Among our current challenges:

• Design and develop a software platform for the new P2 Zip and the world’s cutest Droid delivery and dock system
• Scale our flight and distribution center software to allow upwards exponentially more deliveries per day
• Prototype, test, and refine next generation flight and ground systems working alongside our mechanical and electrical engineering teams
• Develop safe software architecture that will be deployed across the world
• Develop perception solutions for any weather and any real world environment
• Achieve safety and reliability goals beyond the current state of the art

The Role

Do you love tinkering with mechanical and electrical devices and watching your code come to life? Does writing safety-critical low-level software intrigue you? Do you see your projects through from start to finish, regardless of what you’re working on?

Zipline is looking for interns to join our Embedded Systems team to advance our autonomous aircraft and ground systems. In this role, you will work alongside cross-functional partners to develop solutions to some of our trickiest problems.

A lot goes into flying vital supplies autonomously, but doing so reliably and at scale is an even bigger challenge. From deploying embedded software to devices across the world, fault response and handling, launching & landing, all the way to integration with our customer’s physical & software systems, you will work with and learn from not only some of the most impressive embedded engineers in the field, but from a huge variety of our amazing Zipline team!

What You'll Do

Embedded interns own a variety of big problems integral to our system! Examples of previous projects included:

• Building an RF radio test setup to validate antenna performance of the flight compute at the production end-of-line. Responsibilities include owning the entire system—from RF signal injection, testing, and validation, to developing manufacturing software test suites, integrating with Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), and leveraging simulation to model and measure worst-case scenarios.
• Develop firmware for a real-time coprocessor that manages high-frequency signals and I/O expansion for the Linux camera subsystem. Own the overall system design, contribute to board design revisions, and validate signal integrity, jitter, and clock alignment.
• Building a high data rate voltage and current telemetry system that runs continuously in our RTOS using ADCs, I2C devices and GPIO interrupts. Testing this feature rigorously, deploying it to production globally, building data analysis tools to verify that the feature is working properly, and using this data to root-cause tricky failures to improve the reliability of our systems.
• Rapidly iterating on the concept of a new perception system, integrating compute modules and sensor prototypes to fly a proof of concept ASAP and de-risk key aspects of the approach.
• Working with operations teams to identify ways to improve our ground systems behavior to enable faster aircraft launch and landing. Prioritizing changes by obtaining engineering leadership buy-in, and implementing them by using a variety of bench-top and real flight-test methods to verify the code. Ultimately, rolling out the update to global operations!

What You'll Bring

• Pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Computer Engineering. Must have at least completed the second year of your Undergraduate studies. Masters and PhD students are also eligible.
• You've designed, built and/or deployed electromechanical systems or robots, inside or outside the classroom.
• You’re comfortable working in one of C, C++, Python, or Rust, and have developed software for a real time operating system or embedded Linux.
• You are comfortable receiving feedback so that you can learn to write code that is efficient, easy-to-read, well-tested, has friendly APIs, and incurs minimal technical debt.
• You’re familiar with basic electrical engineering concepts, such as reading schematics, debugging with an oscilloscope, and communication protocols (CAN, SPI, UART, etc).

What Else You Should Know

This internship is a full-time position, in-person at our South San Francisco office. We will host our Fall 2026 interns from September to December.

The hourly rate for this internship is $54 per hour. Additional benefits may include relocation support, a housing stipend, overtime pay, paid sick time, and other benefits, where applicable and subject to local requirements.

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.

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.