Staff Firmware Engineer - Motors

About Zipline

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.

About You and The Role

As a Motor Control Engineer at Zipline, you’ll be responsible for shipping high-performance motor controller firmware for Zipline’s family of proprietary motor controllers. Expect to work closely with electrical engineers, structures and mechanism designers, flight software developers, and test-site operations teams. Our close-knit engineering culture presents a unique opportunity to learn from a strong multi-disciplinary team, and lets you swiftly ship features that are clearly linked to the delivery experience.

We use C++ in our firmware development, with Rust and Python for tooling that will be deployed to our production systems in the field. The team uses hardware- and software-in-the-loop test infrastructure to validate new features and regression test existing functionality. You’ll often be querying large data‑sets from our test operations to make high-quality data-driven engineering decisions and build prototypes of new algorithms. You’ll build analyses in Matlab, Julia, or Python to prove the performance of your controls designs, and execute Monte-Carlo simulations to validate complex dynamics.

What You’ll Do

• Design estimators and controllers for propulsion motors and actuators, in close collaboration with the vehicle controls team.
• Implement these controllers in C++, targeting a bare-metal ARM microcontroller.
• Write peripheral drivers for new revisions of Zipline’s motor controller hardware.
• Get your hands dirty validating your firmware on the bench and in flight tests.
• Understand and improve the reliability of the flight software system as a whole, working with hardware and systems engineers to develop comprehensive fault management strategies and hardware-in-the-loop tests.
• Build vehicle simulations in Rust to validate and regression test Zipline’s firmware.
• Collaborate with electrical engineers to bring‑up and validate new inverter designs.
• Build and maintain automated systems to monitor the performance of our fleet and direct maintenance activity.

What You’ll Bring

• Fluency in C/C++, and excitement about writing code in Rust and Python.
• Mastery of nonlinear estimation techniques and classical control theory.
• Eagerness to learn in a fast-paced safety-critical environment.
• Some experience with mechatronic control systems: hobby projects or professional experience are applicable.
• Curiosity and a willingness to work in a variety of embedded environments, from running on bare metal, to using a RTOS and integrating with embedded Linux.
• Experience supporting robotic systems in the real-world, in particular addressing the long‑tail of edge‑cases and rare events to guarantee safety, reliability, and performance.
• A systems‑engineering mindset, and an eye for finding efficient solutions to problems that may lie outside your core competencies.
  Strong executive communication skills, to efficiently communicate about your work with stakeholders outside your technical domain.
• You must be able to work on-site in South San Francisco, CA.
• A background in electronics design would be appreciated, but is not required.

What Else You Need To Know

The starting cash range for this role is $210,000 - $250,000. 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 candidate’s 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.

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.

Voluntary Self‑Identification

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.