Integration Engineer Intern

About Zipline

Zipline is on a mission to transform the way goods move. Our aim is to solve the world’s most urgent and complex access challenges by building the first instant logistics system that serves all humans equally. Leveraging expertise in robotics and autonomy, Zipline designs, builds, and operates a fleet of cutting edge, autonomous delivery drones. We serve tens of millions of people around the world.

Joining Zipline’s Emerging Talent program as an intern is an opportunity to contribute to our promise of building a system that provides equitable access to critical healthcare supplies for millions of people. We believe that internships are more than just opportunities to learn by watching or doing low level tasks. We expect our interns to take on meaningful work that actively contributes to moving Zipline’s mission forward, while learning real-world skills that will serve them in their careers for the long term. 

Join us, and build the future of logistics with the best humans around!

About the Software Integration Team

Are you a deeply technical software engineer drawn to the complexity of real-world autonomy systems? Do you thrive at the intersection of robotics, embedded software, and systems integration, where your code directly influences high-stakes, physical outcomes? At Zipline, we operate the world’s largest autonomous delivery network—and we’re building the tools and infrastructure to scale that system safely, globally, and intelligently.

Our team is responsible for decision making component of the aircraft. We write the software that executes missions, control behaviors on the aircraft such as lowering the zip for a delivery or providing safety critical functionality like responding to a fault and flying back home as soon as possible. We work with cloud, motion planning, perception, controls and firmware teams.

The Role

We're looking for an Integration Engineer Intern to join our team building integrated autonomy features and push them across the finish line into production. This role is not about building web apps or backend dashboards—it's about working at the frontier of autonomous flight: bridging mission logic, real-time systems, autonomy behaviors, and validation frameworks.

You’ll work across planning, perception, and controls subsystems, shaping how autonomous features like emergency landings, route adaptations, and dynamic delivery constraints behave in flight. Your work will integrate embedded aircraft software with simulation infrastructure, telemetry systems, and flight operations to ensure features launch with robust performance, measurable safety, and high availability.

What You'll Do

• Work on integration of complex autonomy features, spanning embedded flight software, real-time behavior logic, and mission-critical runtime systems.
• Implement core vehicle software in Rust, with a focus on performance, safety, and observability in safety-critical environments.
• Develop tooling to support validation, including software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing for rapid iteration and safe experimentation.
• Partner with systems engineering and autonomy teams to define real-world success metrics and build the interfaces and logging infrastructure to track them.

What You'll Bring

• Experience developing software in robotics, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or other safety-critical embedded systems.
• Experience in Rust, C++, or C
• Strong systems-thinking mindset, with an  interest to integrate cross-disciplinary software under tight constraints (e.g. timing, safety, power).
• Hands-on experience with robotics testing, including simulation.
• Ability and interest to work cross-functionally across different domains (hardware, software, cloud)
• A go-getter attitude - motivation to get things and find the answers to make it happen

What Else You Should Know

Our internships are full-time positions, in-person at our South San Francisco or Dallas office. We will host our Spring 2026 interns from January to April. 

The starting cash range for this internship is $44 - 48/ hour. 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, and working location. The total compensation package for each role may also include: a housing stipend; overtime pay; relocation support; paid sick time; 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. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

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.