Principal Software Engineer, Compute Architect, Orbital Data Centers

Blue Origin • Littleton, CO

14h • Onsite

About The Position

Join Blue Origin as we build infrastructure in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re developing a satellite constellation of orbital data centers, Sunrise, designed to transform how compute infrastructure is deployed and leveraged. As a Principal Software Engineer for Compute, you will be the chief architect and hands-on developer of the "operating system" for our space-based data centers. This is a senior, individual contributor role where you will operate with a high degree of autonomy to solve one of our most critical challenges: making a distributed fleet of computers in orbit function as a single, cohesive, and programmable platform. Your primary focus will be to define the spacecraft software stack to process AI jobs are received including, but not limited to planning, scheduling, management, storage, start-up/shut down, and handoffs. This will enable the craft to be best-in-class. You will have to be comfortable enabling high efficiency for multi-tenant workloads while being constrained on power, thermal, and connectivity.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a similar technical discipline.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, or large-scale backend services.
• Deep expertise in building and operating distributed systems, with strong experience in cloud orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes, Mesos, Nomad) and containerization (e.g., Docker).
• Proven experience designing and developing large-scale, high-availability software services and APIs.
• Strong system-architecture capabilities, particularly in the context of cloud-native technologies.
• Experience providing technical leadership for complex software projects.
• Proven demonstration of reducing latency across a product.
• Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible for authorization under U.S. export regulations.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building custom schedulers, controllers, or operators for Kubernetes.
• Deep knowledge of OS-level resource management and optimization.
• Experience building Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products.
• Familiarity with service mesh technologies and software-defined networking.
• Experience designing systems that are highly autonomous.
• Startup experience or a similar environment where building from the ground up is required.
• Familiarity with the latest compute hardware (GPUs, accelerators) and their integration into orchestrated environments.
• Familiarity with the latest trends in distributed computing.

Responsibilities

• Definition, architecture, design, test, and validation of spacecraft compute software.
• Architect and build the orchestration platform for managing containerized workloads across a distributed fleet of orbital compute nodes.
• Design and implement advanced scheduling algorithms to optimize for power, thermal constraints, workload priority, and data locality.
• Develop the control plane, APIs, and related software that enable multi-tenancy, resource allocation, and job submission for workloads.
• Own the software-defined networking and storage strategies
• Design for a highly-available system that rapidly handle failures, intermittent connectivity, and complex orchestration across spacecraft.
• Lead the technical strategy for the entire orchestration stack, from the container runtime and OS-level primitives to the highest-level service layers.
• Lead validation and testing campaigns while working on aggressive timelines for deployment.
• Work closely with hardware and application teams to co-design a platform that is performant, operable, and meets customer needs.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: Associate degree