Principal Software Engineer (Contract) - Flight Test & Integration

ALTEN Technology USA•Arlington, VA

9h•$150,000 - $220,000•Remote

About The Position

We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more. As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing. When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow. As Principal Software Engineer (Contract) - Flight Test & Integration you will be responsible for; The Principal Software I&T Engineer's primary responsibility will be contributing to the development and testing of customer's U.S.'s satellite flight software. This engineer will be involved in the full lifecycle of flight software development, from requirements definition through operations. However, because we are a small team where each person takes on many roles, this engineer will also contribute to mission concept development, in-house modeling and simulation capabilities, and proposal writing. Being at the cutting edge of space technology, we need someone who is eager to learn, grow, and take on new and potentially unfamiliar challenges. There is no shortage of fascinating problems to solve. The Principal Software I&T Engineer will provide autonomous support of complex assignments, under the leadership of the Software Team Lead and Software Engineering Manager.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) or related scientific areas.
A minimum of 15 years with a Bachelor's degree, or 12 years with a Master's degree
Proven track-record of working with space hardware and/or flight software systems, starting from conceptual designs and tradeoffs through detailed design, development, manufacture, integration, test, deployment, and operations.
Insatiable curiosity and a demonstrated ability to learn and work independently
Proficiency in C/C++
Expertise in one or more of the following: Embedded software development and testing, Test scripting (TCL/Python), Device driver development and testing of software/hardware interfaces, Real-time operating systems programming, debugging, and testing, Cybersecurity, GNC algorithms design, analysis, testing, and implementation, Functional validation of embedded software on hardware, Software safety assurance, Network topology and configuration, Simulators: numerical, emulator, and hardware in the loop, Software requirements and configuration management
US Citizenship is required
Ability to obtain and maintain a Government security clearance.

Nice To Haves

Master's in STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) or related scientific areas.
Active DoD security clearance at Secret or above highly desirable

Responsibilities

Develop and execute FSW verifications tests using both proprietary satellite digital twin software and a Hardware in the Loop (HIL) FlatSat.
Establish and document test methodologies and descriptions to test compliance with customer-based requirements.
Develop and implement software and tools for ground support equipment to test and validate flight software.
Contribute to document management, including versioning, bug reporting, and test plan documentation.
Oversee and conduct official validation tests.
Upgrade existing flight software for new missions
Contribute to the development of new satellite flight software for U.S. satellite platforms
Develop in-house tools to analyze flight software performance and assess its compatibility with new mission and conops
Develop and execute flight software verification and validation tests at the unit, module, subsystem, and platform level
Work with manufacturing engineers to support installation onto the hardware-in-the-loop test environments and eventual flight hardware
Participate in anomaly resolution activities and patch existing flight software
Support working groups, both internal and with customers and/or vendors
Support proposal writing, new business
Assess the software impacts of new hardware, conops, and missions