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Salary: USD 210,000 - 250,000 / annual
Zipline is the world's largest autonomous drone delivery service, operating on four continents and completing millions of deliveries of blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. The company has safely flown over 140 million commercial autonomous miles and is redefining global logistics and healthcare access.
As a Staff Firmware Engineer - Motors, you will own the design and delivery of high-performance motor controller firmware for Zipline's proprietary motor controllers. This is a technical leadership role where you'll architect solutions for complex propulsion and actuation systems that directly impact flight safety and delivery reliability.
You will design nonlinear estimators and classical controllers for motors and actuators in close collaboration with vehicle controls, electrical, and structures teams. You'll implement these controllers in C++ on bare-metal ARM microcontrollers, write peripheral drivers for new hardware revisions, and validate firmware through bench testing and flight operations. You'll build vehicle simulations in Rust for regression testing, collaborate on inverter bring-up with electrical engineers, and develop comprehensive fault management strategies with a systems-engineering mindset.
The role involves querying large operational datasets to make data-driven decisions, building performance analyses in Matlab/Julia/Python, executing Monte-Carlo simulations for complex dynamics validation, and maintaining automated fleet monitoring systems. You'll work in a safety-critical environment where reliability and edge-case handling are paramount, supporting real-world robotic systems at scale.
This is a hands-on technical role with company-wide scope in motor control firmware architecture. You'll communicate with stakeholders across electrical, flight software, structures, and operations teams, and contribute to the reliability of Zipline's entire flight software system.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Fluency in C/C++; excitement about Rust and Python
- Mastery of nonlinear estimation techniques and classical control theory
- Experience with mechatronic control systems (hobby or professional)
- Comfort working across embedded environments: bare metal, RTOS, embedded Linux
- Experience supporting robotic systems in production, addressing edge cases and rare events for safety and reliability
- Systems-engineering mindset and ability to find efficient solutions outside core competencies
- Strong executive communication skills for cross-domain stakeholder engagement
- Must be able to work on-site in South San Francisco, CA
- Background in electronics design appreciated but not required
