Senior Software Engineer – Rust Language Maintainer

Company: Zipline
Location: South San Francisco
Posted on: April 1, 2026

Job Description:

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. About You and The Role Zipline’s software team delivers safety-critical software at lightning speed. A small team of engineers builds the tooling and standards that enable development to run like a well-oiled machine. In this role, you will work closely with engineers across autonomy, firmware, flight software, avionics, and simulation. You’ll be on the front lines—pairing with other software engineers daily, developing coding guidelines and standards, and ensuring they are applied consistently across our development workflow. At times your work will be high-level, shaping strategic technical direction or identifying the right tools and standards to adopt. At other times, you’ll be deep in the codebase—writing and maintaining safety-critical Rust and C++ code, debugging challenging issues, and improving execution environments. Above all, you’ll be a trusted partner to other engineers, improving their experience while raising the bar on safety and quality. What You'll Do Pair daily with other software engineers to improve workflows and enforce coding guidelines Own and evolve Zipline’s coding standards and development practices Form and lead a Rust Language steering group Write and maintain safety-critical Rust and C++ code Drive improvements to CI/CD, build, and testing pipelines to keep development flowing smoothly Collaborate with engineers across the org to deliver safe, reliable, and fast development workflows What You'll Bring 8 years of experience in a software development role at engineering-led companies Deep experience writing and maintaining safety-critical Rust or C++ code Strong understanding of embedded execution environments (e.g., Nvidia Orin/Thor) Excitement about having other engineers as your customer: you thrive on pairing, collaborating, and helping others succeed Ability to develop and enforce coding guidelines and standards across diverse teams A customer-centric mindset with the ability to embed quickly and work side-by-side with engineers What Else You Need to Know This role is an in-office opportunity based out of our South San Francisco HQ. The starting cash range for this role is $170,000-210,000. 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; 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!

Keywords: Zipline, Novato , Senior Software Engineer – Rust Language Maintainer, IT / Software / Systems , South San Francisco, California