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 Nest Applications Software team builds and manages the fulfillment, maintenance and flight systems that power our operations in Africa. We are responsible for the software that manages medical inventory, order processing, and flight coordination for automated delivery at scale. Our work spans internal platforms that streamline supply chain, and financial workflows, as well as external-facing applications that allow customers to place and track orders. By connecting every corner of the business through software, we ensure Zipline can operate efficiently, intelligently, and globally.

What You'll Do

Deep dive into your users’ problems to simplify operational workflows which enable the business to move efficiently
Architect simple, modular, flexible software systems that evolve with fast changing business needs.
Lead backend and frontend development of major projects across all aspects of a modern tech stack.
Establish strong automated testing practices across unit, integration, and system layers.
Improve reliability, observability, and operational robustness of production systems.
Systematize AI-assisted workflows across development, testing, and operations.
Maintain clear engineering patterns, code quality standards, and review discipline.
Mentor junior engineers through direct coaching, pairing, and design reviews.
Increase team throughput by reducing friction, simplifying architecture, and eliminating waste.

What You'll Bring

8+ years building and operating production-grade distributed systems.
Deep experience developing full stack software using Python, Go, or a similar object-oriented language.
Frontend experience using React or similar Javascript frameworks.
Experience architecting distributed and event-driven systems using Kafka or similar technologies.
Database modeling and performance tuning experience with Postgres.
Demonstrated history of designing systems that are simple, flexible, and resilient.
Proven implementation of comprehensive automated testing strategies.
Experience driving architectural decisions in fast-changing environments.
Track record of mentoring and growing junior engineers.

Nice to Haves

Experience building modern fulfillment, logistics, or warehouse systems.
Willingness to spend significant time in Kigali, Rwanda, via travel or relocation.
Production experience with Kubernetes and AWS.

What Else You Need to Know

Marketplace, fulfillment, billing, and support systems that connect demand, delivery, and financial correctness
Network operations software for simulation, real-time visibility, intervention, orchestration, maintenance, and asset health
Enterprise systems that power manufacturing, supply chain, inventory, traceability, finance, quality, and field operations

You’ll work closely with the people who use these systems every day, from operators and field teams to manufacturing, supply chain, finance, commercial, product, and partner teams. You’ll identify ambiguous problems, design durable systems, build production software end to end, and drive adoption.

Why This Role Is Unique

This team builds the software backbone of Zipline’s autonomous logistics network, turning complex real-world operations into reliable systems that scale.

You’ll solve problems like:

How do we give operators and partners real-time visibility into a complex physical network?
How do we keep the network moving when demand shifts, weather changes, assets degrade, or capacity gets tight?
How do we build financial and operational systems where every transaction, part, order, and aircraft state is traceable?
How do we automate workflows across manufacturing, supply chain, fulfillment, and field operations without losing correctness?
How do we design software that scales across countries, metros, verticals, and millions of deliveries?

These are production systems with immediate operational and business consequences. You’ll have real ownership, make technical and product decisions, and help shape how Zipline scales.

What We’re Looking For

You may be a strong fit if you:

Have experience building and shipping production software systems
Bring strong full-stack fundamentals across frontend, backend, services, and data
Can turn ambiguous, high-stakes problems into simple, reliable software
Combine product instinct with systems judgment
Care deeply about reliability, correctness, usability, and operational trust
Enjoy working directly with users and stakeholders to understand real workflows
Want to shape architecture and product direction, not just implement scoped features
Are excited to use modern AI tooling to increase velocity while maintaining strong engineering rigor

Our current stack includes Go, Python, React, gRPC, Kafka, PostgreSQL, AWS, Bazel, Grafana, and Honeycomb, but we care more about your ability to learn quickly and solve the right problems than your experience with any specific tool.

What Else You Need to Know

The starting cash range for this role is $180,000 - $240,000. 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!

Staff Full Stack Software Engineer - Health Care Platform