Flight Software Engineer
About The Position
We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic Software Engineer to join the Simulation, Integration and Test Department with a passion for launching hardware into space and a desire to revolutionize the space industry. Our ideal candidate thrives in a highly collaborative environment and enjoys finding ways to innovate and make processes more efficient. This team builds new simulation capabilities, proves they are correct, and authors the mission scenarios that exercise them. In this role you will write the models that stand in for a real spacecraft, including the dynamics, the avionics interfaces, and the telemetry, and you will be responsible for their accuracy. When a regression test passes against your simulator, the flight software team needs to be able to trust that result. You will work closely with the Systems Architecture and FSW teams as new vehicle components come online, building the simulation capability to match and validating that it behaves the way the real hardware does.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree or greater in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or related field
- 2+ years of experience in software engineering or a related field
- Demonstrated development experience in Python and C++
- Working knowledge of physics-based modeling, numerical methods, or control systems
- Demonstrated proficiency in a Linux environment and with bash scripting
- Demonstrated proficiency with Git and modern Agile software development practices and tools
Nice To Haves
- Coursework or experience in orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, or GN&C
- Experience emulating hardware interfaces or spacecraft bus protocols such as CAN, SpaceWire, or RS-422
- Experience writing performance-sensitive simulation or real-time software
- Experience validating models against test or flight data
- Experience designing and working with APIs
- Familiarity with spacecraft flight software and avionics architectures
- Experience with Docker and containerization
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, especially GitLab CI/CD
- Experience with Software-in-the-Loop (SITL) and/or Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) test systems
- Experience in end-to-end, system-level automated testing
- Experience with agentic or AI-assisted software development workflows
- Ability to interface with and handle flight hardware
- Familiarity with the space domain and satellite operations
- Networking concepts like UDP/TCP
- Active Top Secret security clearance or ability to obtain
Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain the physics simulator, improving both model fidelity and runtime performance
- Develop new simulation capabilities in step with new vehicle components, and validate that they model real behavior correctly
- Author, develop, and integrate mission test scenarios, including fault and off-nominal cases
- Build and maintain interface emulator logic
- Model telemetry accurately enough to support meaningful regression testing
- Support and extend development targeting the hardware interface with the simulation environment
- Collaborate with the Systems Architecture and FSW teams on new component development
- Collaborate with other teams on simulation health
- Support internal users directly and incorporate their feedback into the simulation models
- Follow SIT software development processes to ensure fast and quality releases
- Implement software development, testing, and CI/CD practices that meet division and department standards for software
- Develop and maintain product documentation, user guides, and model validation records
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
