Spacecraft Flight Software Engineer

About the Role

We are partnering with an exciting NewSpace company developing next-generation technologies for space intelligence, orbital awareness, and advanced spacecraft operations.

They are looking for an experienced Spacecraft Flight Software Engineer to join their flight software team and contribute to the development of reliable, mission-critical software for spacecraft systems.

This is a full-time, onsite role for an engineer with strong hands-on experience across spacecraft flight software, embedded systems, and hardware/software integration. You will design and implement the software architecture responsible for everything from telemetry and spacecraft communications to boot behaviour, memory management, hardware interfaces, and fault recovery.

Salary: $160,000-$190,000 USD, with flexibility depending on the candidate’s experience and qualifications.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, maintain, and evolve spacecraft flight software architectures.

• Implement new software components and communication protocols to support mission-specific spacecraft and payload requirements.

• Develop and maintain core system functions including telemetry collection, precision time-stamping, rate-group scheduling, and spacecraft bus communications.

• Develop drivers and low-level software for interfacing with FPGAs, GPIOs, and spacecraft hardware.

• Design and manage memory storage solutions, making appropriate decisions around volatile and non-volatile memory to ensure data integrity and system reliability.

• Develop and implement critical boot behaviours, partition swapping, fail-safe modes, and recovery mechanisms.

• Manage software repositories using GitLab, including the development and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines for automated testing and development workflows.

• Execute comprehensive software test campaigns on FlatSat testbeds and flight hardware to verify performance under flight-like conditions.

• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to integrate spacecraft subsystems with the main onboard computing platform.

• Ensure software development and testing activities comply with relevant industry standards and regulatory requirements.

• Document software architecture, design decisions, test results, and system performance.

• Provide technical guidance on flight software architecture and embedded systems to other engineers.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.

• 5+ years of professional experience in core flight software, embedded software, or a closely related aerospace/space systems role, with significant hands-on spacecraft code development and testing.

• Strong programming experience in Python, C/C++, and embedded Linux.

• Demonstrated expertise with hardware-level communication protocols such as I2C, CAN, UART, RS485, or similar.

• Experience interfacing software with FPGAs, GPIOs, and other low-level spacecraft hardware.

• Strong understanding of embedded systems, computer architecture, operating systems, and hardware/software interfaces.

• Strong experience with GitLab and CI/CD workflows.

• Experience developing, testing, debugging, and integrating software on real hardware.

• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills within a dynamic engineering environment.

• Must possess or be willing and eligible to obtain a United States Department of Defense Top Secret security clearance.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with spacecraft flight software frameworks such as F´ (F Prime) or cFS.

• Strong understanding of operating systems, memory architecture, I/O interfaces, and embedded computer architecture.

• Experience with memory management, file systems, and bootloader development for embedded systems.

• Experience working in cleanroom environments and following ESD control procedures.

• Experience developing software for spaceflight or other safety-/mission-critical embedded systems.

• Experience with FlatSat, hardware-in-the-loop, or other spacecraft integration and test environments.

• Experience working across the full software lifecycle, from architecture and implementation through integration, testing, and flight operations.

• Experience with low-level debugging and hardware/software integration.

• Familiarity with relevant spacecraft software standards and development practices.

What You’ll Be Working On

You will work at the intersection of flight software, embedded systems, spacecraft hardware, and mission-critical space technology, helping develop the software that controls and operates advanced spacecraft in orbit.

This is an opportunity to work on technically challenging problems across flight software architecture, embedded Linux, hardware interfaces, spacecraft communications, memory management, boot systems, fault recovery, CI/CD, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.

You will have the opportunity to work closely with multidisciplinary engineering teams and contribute directly to the development and integration of next-generation spacecraft systems.

Benefits

A comprehensive benefits package is offered, which may include:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage

• 401(k) or equivalent retirement contribution/matching

• Paid vacation and sick leave

• Paid holidays

• Family and parental leave

• Other employee benefits and support programs

Equal Opportunity

The company is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants regardless of age, disability, sex, race, religion, gender, national origin, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Reasonable accommodations will be provided to qualified applicants where required.