OS Platform Engineer

K2 Space•Los Angeles, CA

About The Position

K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by $450M from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, T. Rowe Price, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Alpine Space Ventures, and others – with an additional $500M in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers – we’re mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space. The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today’s and tomorrow’s massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits. With multiple launches planned through 2026 and 2027, we're Building Bigger to develop the solar system and become a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a groundbreaking Series C space startup, we’d love for you to apply. You will be responsible for architecting and evolving the core operating system capabilities of some of the largest spacecraft ever flown, ensuring a reliable boundary between SoC specific complexity and high-level flight software. You will write mission-critical code that maintains a secure boot chain and platform for safe operation of the vehicle. In your first 6 months you will develop core pieces of the software platform including tuning Linux to meet hard real-time requirements, and creating a shared sense of time across the vehicle. In your first year you will develop a strategy and tooling to ensure we can utilize the latest Kernel versions with confidence. In your first two years you will operate your code on multiple spacecraft, demonstrating robust performance in demanding missions.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, math, or a STEM discipline or 5+ years of professional experience in software engineering
Development experience in Rust, C/C++, Python, VHDL, SystemVerilog

Nice To Haves

Fluency with Linux systems programming and driver development
Familiarity with building embedded Linux images (Buildroot, Bitbake, Yocto)
Experience building or working with hard real-time embedded systems (bare-metal or RT Linux)
Familiarity with Precision Time Protocol (IEEE1588 PTP)
Experience with spacecraft flight software development
Experience with continuous integration and continuous delivery systems
Basic knowledge of electronics, computer architecture, and control systems
Experience with software verification and testing methods
Experience with software and network performance analysis and debugging
Experience with fault tolerant software design and implementation
Experience defining and creating test systems for both hardware-in-the-loop and hardware-out-of-the-loop

Responsibilities

Create software architecture for real-time, fault tolerant control of a 20kW+ spacecraft
Maintain custom RT Linux Distribution for internally developed computers
Maintain and customize UBoot to support a bullet-proof rollback system along with validation of authenticity at every step of the boot process
Curate device trees across various boards to allow easy use of hardware specific features
Create and utilize robust tools to allow for rapid deployment of quality code
Perform data analysis and anomaly investigation to identify and resolve software bugs
Support integration and testing of the spacecraft subsystems
Build and maintain infrastructure to increase reliability when developing and testing software