Senior Software Engineer (Motor Controls)

As a Senior Motor Control Engineer at Zipline, you’ll be responsible for shipping high-performance motor controller firmware for Zipline’s family of proprietary motor controllers

Expect to work closely with electrical engineers, structures and mechanism designers, flight software developers, and test-site operations teams

Our close-knit engineering culture presents a unique opportunity to learn from a strong multi-disciplinary team, and lets you swiftly ship features that are clearly linked to the delivery experience

We use C++ in our firmware development, with Rust and Python for tooling that will be deployed to our production systems in the field

The team uses hardware- and software-in-the-loop test infrastructure to validate new features and regression test existing functionality

You’ll often be querying large data-sets from our test operations to make high-quality data-driven engineering decisions and build prototypes of new algorithms

You’ll build analyses in Matlab, Julia, or Python to prove the performance of your controls designs, and execute Monte-Carlo simulations to validate complex dynamics

Design estimators and controllers for propulsion motors and actuators, in close collaboration with the vehicle controls team

Implement these controllers in C++, targeting a bare-metal ARM microcontroller

Write peripheral drivers for new revisions of Zipline’s motor controller hardware

Get your hands dirty validating your firmware on the bench and in flight tests

Understand and improve the reliability of the flight software system as a whole, working with hardware and systems engineers to develop comprehensive fault management strategies and hardware-in-the-loop tests

Build vehicle simulations in Rust to validate and regression test Zipline’s firmware

Collaborate with electrical engineers to bring-up and validate new inverter designs

Build and maintain automated systems to monitor the performance of our fleet and direct maintenance activity- Experience supporting robotic systems in the real-world, in particular addressing the long-tail of edge-cases and rare events to guarantee safety, reliability, and performance

A systems-engineering mindset, and an eye for finding efficient solutions to problems that may lie outside your core competencies

You must be able to work on-site in South San Francisco, CA

Eagerness to learn in a fast-paced safety-critical environment

Curiosity and a willingness to work in a variety of embedded environments, from running on bare metal, to using a RTOS and integrating with embedded Linux

Strong executive communication skills, to efficiently communicate about your work with stakeholders outside your technical domain

Fluency in C/C++, and excitement about writing code in Rust and Python

Some experience with mechatronic control systems: hobby projects or professional experience are applicable

A background in electronics design would be appreciated, but is not required