Principal Software Engineer
About The Position
Rocket Lab Optical Systems develops mission-critical space-domain and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance solutions for Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers. The company builds space, terrestrial, and airborne sensing systems, drawing on more than 20 years of electro-optical and infrared systems innovation from Geost. As a Principal Software Engineer in Chantilly, Virginia, you will design flight software for spacecraft supporting Tranche 3 of the U.S. Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. The role focuses on developing payload flight software and deploying novel algorithms on sensor systems constrained by size, weight, and power. You will provide technical leadership across software requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, and deployment, while guiding teams and engineers through delivery of integrated solutions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science or computer engineering.
- 12+ years of embedded software engineering experience.
- Experience designing complex multithreaded applications.
- Experience designing flight software.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.
Nice To Haves
- Familiarity with high-performance and parallel processing.
- Exposure to novel architectures, including FPGA and CUDA.
- Familiarity with flight software system management.
- Experience with algorithm implementation.
- Exposure to Python and MATLAB.
- Familiarity with numerical computing principles.
Responsibilities
- Support development of payload flight software for Space Systems programs.
- Deploy novel algorithms in austere environments on size-, weight-, and power-constrained sensor systems.
- Lead cross-functional teams in defining technical requirements and delivering integrated solutions.
- Provide technical leadership throughout software design and development, from requirements generation through implementation, testing, and deployment.
- Define and influence software architecture, design patterns, interfaces, and technical standards for scalable, maintainable, and extensible solutions.
- Advance performance-oriented programming fundamentals using a variety of accelerator technologies.
- Mentor engineers, provide technical guidance, and foster engineering excellence and continuous improvement.
- Support technical planning, effort estimation, risk identification, dependency management, and milestone delivery.
- Communicate technical status and risks to stakeholders.
Benefits
- Company stock as part of total compensation.
- Employee Stock Purchase Program with a 15% discount on company stock.
- Medical plans.
- Dental coverage.
- Vision coverage.
- Paid vacation and sick time.
- 11 paid holidays.
- Flexible spending and dependent care accounts.
- Paid parental leave.
- Disability insurance.
- Life insurance.
- 401(k) retirement plan with company match.
- Other discounts and perks.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
