Flight Software Engineer
$200,000–$250,000 year
On-siteSeattle, Washington, United States
Job Summary
Lead payload flight software architecture and development in Rust, covering attitude and pointing state machines, command handling, and telemetry storage. Establish coding patterns and conventions while designing fault detection, isolation, and recovery behaviors to ensure flight-quality determinism and fault tolerance. Build automated simulation and hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure, then collaborate with GNC, avionics, and systems engineers to define interfaces. Support integration, environmental testing, and early-orbit operations, investigating anomalies across hardware and software boundaries to drive root cause analysis. Mentor engineers through design reviews and code audits to raise overall quality. Guide the team toward a near-term on-orbit demonstration by making pragmatic scope and risk tradeoffs.
Required Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience (or equivalent practical experience) developing flight software or software for other high-reliability, safety-critical systems
- Experience with software that has flown on orbit, or equivalent deployment experience demonstrating judgment about what flight-quality software requires
- Strong systems programming skills in Rust, C, or C++, with willingness to work primarily in Rust
- Experience with real-time and embedded systems, including resource-constrained and fault-tolerant designs
- Experience designing and implementing state machines, command/telemetry handling, or similar spacecraft software functions
- Experience with hardware/software integration and testing on real hardware
- Demonstrated ability to lead technically: setting architecture, establishing conventions, and mentoring other engineers
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State
Desired Qualifications
- Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
- Prior experience as a technical lead or architect for a spacecraft flight software effort
- Production Rust experience, particularly in embedded or systems contexts
- Experience with attitude determination and control or pointing systems from the software side
- Experience with FDIR design, redundancy management, and autonomous fault response
- Experience building simulation, software-in-the-loop, and hardware-in-the-loop test environments
- Experience supporting launch, commissioning, and on-orbit operations, including anomaly investigation
- Familiarity with radiation effects and other space-environment considerations for software design
- Experience thriving in fast-paced, high-ownership startup environments with rapid iteration cycles
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