Manufacturing Software Engineer Intern, Skydio
Winter 2027
$47 USD per hour
Office located in San Mateo, CA
Autonomous drones for DFR, inspection, and national security
Be an early applicant
Autonomous drones for DFR, inspection, and national security
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$47 USD per hour
Office located in San Mateo, CA
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To make the world more productive, creative, and safe with autonomous flight.
Role
Who you are
- You love having fun building great products and enjoy working on systems that involve both hardware and software
- You are very comfortable with Python and have strong coding fundamentals
- You’re a patient troubleshooter, comfortable asking for help when you need it, and giving help whenever you can
- You get excited by How It's Made or Factorio and want to get paid to work on the machine that builds the machines
What the job involves
- As an intern on the Manufacturing Software team, you'll be a core contributor, helping us manufacture high-quality drones, docks and accessories at scale to meet growing customer demands, turning prototypes into finished products
- The processes and tools you build will have a significant impact on the company's scale and success
- This team is highly cross-functional. It sits at the intersection of backend (Python + Flask), embedded software (C++/C), frontend (React + Typescript), and electrical engineering (Robotics and Hardware Fixtures)
- If you have strong coding fundamentals, thrive on solving and debugging cross-functional challenges, and are passionate about hardware-software systems, this could be a uniquely rewarding opportunity for learning and professional growth
- Build and maintain a Hardware-in-the-Loop system for continuous testing of the hardware and software components of our drones and build systems
- Design a deployment system for sending code physical machines all over the globe, inside of challenging and hostile networks, with redundant safety systems
- Build a visual configuration tool for documenting and changing how mass production processes work and change on the fly
- Develop our robot calibration process that can distinguish between hardware and software failures and suggest next steps for assembly rework
- Create a dashboard that visualizes the state of the factory to help engineers debug faster
- Develop an automated test fixture that assesses sensors and actuators to minimize operator interaction
- How you'll make an impact:
- Develop an AI-powered triage system that can inspect drone hardware and suggest which parts need to be repaired
- Build a framework that combines LLM agents with our manufacturing API in a loop to test the hardware, and compare results against a growing library of root cause failures and suggested reworks
- Our tech:
- Python + Flask backend + on-machine, Protobufs for IPC and RPC
- React + Typescript frontend
- On-premises containerized Linux client machines and servers, AWS backend cloud
- Hardware-in-the-Loop validation systems
- In-house framework for manufacturing and testing operations
Our take
A leader in autonomous flight, Skydio builds drones that can track and film targets while avoiding obstacles. Its products have a wide range of applications, most notably for businesses that need to undertake inspections in unsafe places. The drones are also valuable to search and rescue efforts, police forces, and the US Army.
Backed by a range of top investors and strategic partners (including Andreesen Horowitz, Levitate Capital, and Next 47), Skydio sets itself apart from its competitors by marketing its products predominantly to businesses. With technology such as 3D scanning and a 360-degree superzoom mode, its drones have a wide range of applications and functionality.
The company raised funding in 2023, which has boosted its valuation to over $2B. It has since focussed on R&D, developing and launching the X10 model, which is designed for first responders and the military, as well as enhancing its remote control and thermal imaging capabilities. On top of this, it's also been awarded two contracts to expand the use of advanced autonomous drones across key operational units by the US Air Force. As the largest American drone company, there is no reason Skydio shouldn't remain a key industry actor for years to come.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
24% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Apr 2026
$110m
SERIES F
Nov 2024
$170m
SERIES E
Total funding: $851m
Company HQ
Western Hills, San Mateo, CA
Leadership
Adam Bry
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied at MIT, they spent a year and a half at Google as a Software Engineer. They left this position in February 2014 to co-found Skydio.
Abraham Bachrach
(Co-Founder & CTO)Earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and was a Software Engineer for Google's Project Wing.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 66 more jobs at Skydio