Aerodynamics Intern (Spring 2027)

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.

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.

About the Applied Aerodynamics Team

Without the Aerodynamics team, the Zipline drones would not fly! This team is responsible for the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft, from high-level aeronautical considerations down to the detailed surface design. We work on everything from the body and propellers to vehicle dynamics and aeroacoustics, and in order to ensure our product is successful we collaborate strongly with almost every other engineering team, including GNC, structures, mechanical integration, avionics, perception, systems, weather and others.

The Role

As an intern in the Aerodynamics Team you can expect to work on any one of our current open projects alongside our world-class aerodynamicists and aeronautical engineers, both learning from their experience and bringing your own perspective to the tasks. This is an opportunity to test the skills and knowledge you’ve learned at school in a practical and fast-paced environment, where we leverage our understanding of physics to solve real problems. You will learn to use a variety of tools - from low fidelity calculations, through CFD simulation to experimental analysis - to help drive the design of our current and future products forward.

What You'll Do

• Vehicle design analysis including aerodynamics, propulsion, and power system performance.
• Low- and high-fidelity analytical modeling of vehicle subsystems and behaviors.
• Aerodynamic database generation and building analysis of flight behaviors.
• Experiment planning, execution and data analysis, from wind tunnels to flight tests.
• Support multidisciplinary team including controls, mechanical, production, software, and electrical engineers to tackle design challenges and resolve time-sensitive issues.

What You'll Bring

You will be studying one or more of the following areas: fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, flight physics, aeronautical engineering, acoustics. A strong understanding of the technical content of these courses is the most valuable asset you will bring, and will help you exercise good engineering judgment.

Understanding and experience with any of the following toolsets is advantageous. If you have not used the tool before, we’ll teach you to use it where needed.

• Continuum- or Lattice Boltzmann-based computational fluid dynamics, such as STAR-CCM+, Fluent, OpenFOAM, or PowerFLOW.
• Wind tunnel test identification, planning, execution.