Senior Software Engineer, Delivery Network Platform
Zipline
Software Engineering
South San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 180k-270k / year + Equity
Posted on Mar 29, 2026
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.
The Delivery Network Platform team builds the core systems that keep aircraft, sites, and infrastructure ready for live delivery operations. We create the software operators use to understand and control the network in real time, the orchestration systems that move the fleet through it, and the validation platforms that ensure the network behaves correctly as scale and complexity grow.
What You Will Own
You will own software in the critical path of fleet operations, including:
Most software roles optimize digital experiences. This role helps run a live autonomous logistics network.
You will work on problems like:
How We Work
This team operates with high ownership, high trust, and a high technical bar. Engineers are expected to identify important problems, form a clear view of how the system should work, and drive solutions from concept through production.
We also expect engineers to use AI tooling effectively as a force multiplier across exploration, implementation, and debugging, while maintaining strong engineering rigor, judgment, and accountability.
What You Will Bring
You are likely a strong fit if you:
What Else You Need to Know
The starting cash range for this role is $180,000 - $270,000. 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; overtime pay; 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, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.
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 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.
The Delivery Network Platform team builds the core systems that keep aircraft, sites, and infrastructure ready for live delivery operations. We create the software operators use to understand and control the network in real time, the orchestration systems that move the fleet through it, and the validation platforms that ensure the network behaves correctly as scale and complexity grow.
What You Will Own
You will own software in the critical path of fleet operations, including:
- Network Operating Center software for real-time operational visibility and intervention across aircraft, sites, missions, weather, and demand
- Fleet orchestration systems for assignment, routing, scheduling, and rebalancing
- Maintenance and asset health systems that connect issue detection to return-to-service
- Simulation and validation platforms that evaluate topology, load, and policy changes before they reach production
- Platform interfaces and configurable control planes that let other teams extend the network safely
Most software roles optimize digital experiences. This role helps run a live autonomous logistics network.
You will work on problems like:
- maintaining a trustworthy real-time view of aircraft and critical site assets across the network
- keeping the network moving when demand shifts, weather changes, infrastructure degrades, or capacity gets tight
- building operator control surfaces that support fast, correct decisions under pressure
- simulating future network behavior before production absorbs the risk
How We Work
This team operates with high ownership, high trust, and a high technical bar. Engineers are expected to identify important problems, form a clear view of how the system should work, and drive solutions from concept through production.
We also expect engineers to use AI tooling effectively as a force multiplier across exploration, implementation, and debugging, while maintaining strong engineering rigor, judgment, and accountability.
What You Will Bring
You are likely a strong fit if you:
- have a track record of turning ambiguous, high-stakes systems problems into production software others rely on
- combine strong systems judgment with product instinct and care about solving the real operational problem
- can simplify complexity, define durable abstractions, and improve the architecture around you
- care deeply about reliability, correctness, and operator trust
- thrive in environments where software, operations, hardware, and product intersect
- want to shape architecture and operating models, not just implement scoped features
What Else You Need to Know
The starting cash range for this role is $180,000 - $270,000. 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; overtime pay; 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, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.
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!