Flight Test Engineer Intern (Summer 2027)
Zipline · South San Francisco, California, USA
About this role
## About Zipline Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We’re 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. Zipline operates on four continents and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. ## About the Flight Test Engineering Team Zipline’s **Flight Test Engineering** team designs flight test courses and methods to support system validation. You’ll help develop custom flight control software for complex maneuvers and collaborate with development engineers to design rigorous tests for critical edge cases. The team leverages expertise in system design, statistics, flight physics, and sound experimental methods to ensure flight tests are effective and safe. You’ll partner closely with Controls and Dynamics, Embedded Software, Autonomy, Systems Engineering, Powertrain, Structure, and Flight Operations. ## The Role (Flight Test Engineering Intern — Summer 2027) As a **Flight Test Engineering Intern**, you’ll analyze flight test data logs to determine test effectiveness, identify success/failure root causes, and track performance trends. You’ll also contribute to the design of new flight test campaigns—collaborating with engineers to define test scope, test method, and data post-processing. ## What You’ll Do - Analyze flight test data logs using custom scripts (Python, DataBricks, SQL) to identify anomalies, assess reliability, track performance trends, and run regression analyses. - Design, oversee execution, and review results of software validation and flight test campaigns to ensure new features perform as intended and prevent hardware/software regression. - Monitor tests and the develop branch daily to quickly surface instability and potential future issues. - Collaborate cross-functionally (GNC, Aerodynamics, Structures, Systems Engineering) to ensure system-level requirements (e.g., acceleration, range, climb rate) are clear, measurable, and that vehicle changes are mature for flight testing. - Define or develop novel test infrastructure, including application-based tools, new instrumentation systems (e.g., load cells, vision systems), and/or modified flight control software to collect auxiliary data in flight. - Establish and maintain documentation, dashboards, and SQL search queries to track test progress and operational efficiency. - Be ready to own aspects of flight operations (preflight, launch, flight maneuvers, incident reporting) or supervise these activities with the Flight Operations team. ## What You’ll Bring - Completed the **second year** of your undergraduate studies in physics, mathematics, mechanical, aerospace, systems engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, or a related field. **Master’s and PhD students are also eligible.** - Strong mathematical and physics background. - Experience in autonomous vehicle/robotic system integration and testing. - Experience with data processing and visualization. - Strong written and verbal communication skills. ## What Else You Should Know - **Full-time, in-person** role at Zipline’s **South San Francisco** office. - Summer 2027 internship dates: **May/June to August/September**. - Additional benefits may include relocation support, a housing stipend, o
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