Embedded Engineering Intern, Zipline
Spring 2026
$38.00 - $42.00 per hour
3-5 days a week in office (South San Francisco, CA)
Transforming the way goods move
Open for applications
Transforming the way goods move
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$38.00 - $42.00 per hour
3-5 days a week in office (South San Francisco, CA)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To build the world's first logistics system that serves all people equally.
Role
Who you are
- We believe close interaction with team members and hands-on experience with hardware is invaluable to maximize the impact you can have at Zipline
- Must have at least completed the second year of your Undergraduate studies. Masters and PhD students are also eligible
- Pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Computer Engineering
- 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 getting 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 the job involves
- 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!
- 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!
- The minimum internship duration is 10 weeks. Longer internships/co-ops are encouraged but not required. Interns in embedded systems have extended their internship to 4-6 months
- A longer tenure multiplies impact, you’ll have learned a ton at Zipline in your first several weeks and be able to tackle projects of significant complexity and impact as your internship continues
- We will host our Spring 2026 interns from January to April
Our take
Zipline is reinventing how the world moves goods - one flight at a time. What started as a bold idea to deliver life-saving medical supplies by drones has grown into the world's first logistics network designed to serve everyone, everywhere. From rushing blood and vaccines to remote clinics, to dropping off everyday essential for Walmart customers, Ziplines's autonomous drones are proving that fast, reliable delivery doesn't have to be limited by roads or geography.
Zipline has an edge over potential future competitors as the company has thousands of hours and over 35 million miles of flight to prove the system is safe and effective. It’s also one of the first companies to receive a full commercial operating certificate, putting Zipline in a strong position to continuously branch out to other markets.
The unicorn company operates globally and has signed its first government contract with Rwanda to provide up to 2 million drone deliveries by 2029. Beyond government partnerships, Zipline has its sight set on everyday consumers, preparing to launch commercial deliveries straight to individuals houses. With its Walmart collaboration expanding and even Chipotle orders taking to the skies in Texas, Zipline isn't just redefining delivery - it's aiming to reach every corner of commerce, with a future that looks as bright as its ambitions.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
34% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Apr 2023
$330m
SERIES F
Jul 2021
$250m
SERIES E
Total funding: $813.7m
Company HQ
South San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Keller Rinaudo Cliffton
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied Economics and Biotechnology at Harvard, they worked for almost 11 months as a self-employed rock climber. They combined their academic and practical experience to co-found Zipline in July 2011.
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 50 more jobs at Zipline