Simulation Engineering Intern (Fall 2025)

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!

The simulation team provides the software and infrastructure that’s used to develop and validate flight software. Simulations are used by developers to iterate on their code, and are also part of our test suite. Zipline drones have flown over 20 billion km in simulation, which helped catch thousands of bugs before they happened in the real world. It’s also fundamental for every developer’s workflow, imagine testing how a small change to code affects dozens of drones flying together without simulation!

As a member of the simulation team, you’ll be working closely with experienced developers to provide powerful, efficient, and usable tools to developers working on Platform 2’s autonomy flight software. That may include integrating with cloud services and flight software, mocking inputs like customer demand or wind, developing visualizations, and improving performance.

• Develop simulation software used by various teams for development, validation, and certification
• Develop tools to improve the productivity of simulation users, such as graphical and command line interfaces
• Work alongside autonomy teams to integrate simulation with flight code and hardware
• Work alongside the modeling team to implement simulation models
• Generate simulation test scenarios

• Strong software engineering skills, with proficiency in at least one language: Rust, C/C++, and Python
• Experience developing or using simulation of robots or vehicles (e.g. satellite, car, drone, or plane)
• Experience using Linux, Docker, and git