Senior Embedded Software Designer (6+ month Contract)

Kepler Communications

19d

About The Position

Kepler Communications is hiring a Senior Embedded Software Designer on a contract lasting at least six months. The role focuses on developing and maintaining software for spacecraft and ground-based assets supporting a growing satellite fleet. The successful candidate will contribute technical input and decisions that directly affect system design and operation, and will provide technical leadership and guidance to junior engineers.

Kepler Communications develops real-time on-orbit connectivity for critical missions. Its commercial optical data relay constellation supports continuous space communications, on-orbit compute, and hosted payload capabilities.

Requirements

• At least 6 years of experience developing embedded software for complex, high-reliability systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including system design, debugging, testing, performance analysis, and maintainable code development.
• Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems, including concurrency, interrupt handling, memory-mapped peripherals, and hardware communication interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, and CAN.
• Experience developing software for embedded Linux and/or RTOS environments, including familiarity with build systems such as Yocto/OpenEmbedded and operating systems such as FreeRTOS.
• Experience developing low-level embedded Linux components, including kernel modules, device drivers, and device tree integrations.
• Experience developing and maintaining automated test frameworks, validation tooling, or hardware/software integration test environments.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across software, hardware, and operations teams.
• Proficiency with modern software development workflows and tools, including Git-based version control and code review practices.
• Willingness to adopt and effectively use AI-assisted engineering tools, applying sound judgment to improve productivity, quality, and innovation while adapting to evolving technologies.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience developing software for aerospace applications.
• Experience implementing embedded security solutions such as secure boot, hardware security modules (HSMs), certificate/key management, authentication, or encrypted communications.
• Familiarity with Linux networking concepts and infrastructure, including routing, interfaces, netlink, or packet-processing pipelines.
• Experience developing multi-stage bootloaders.
• Strong knowledge of computer networking and modern networking protocols.
• Experience with RTL (Verilog and/or VHDL) and embedded SoCs.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain reliable, high-quality embedded software for spacecraft and ground-based systems supporting a growing satellite fleet.
• Design and implement secure communications capabilities, including encryption, authentication, and key exchange for next-generation data links.
• Build and maintain low-level software components, including device drivers, kernel modules, hardware interfaces, and platform services.
• Develop automated tests, validation tools, and technical documentation to support robust software delivery and long-term maintainability.
• Participate in software architecture discussions, design reviews, and code reviews to ensure software quality and system reliability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define system requirements, debug complex issues, and evolve system architecture.
• Identify performance gaps, reliability risks, and architectural shortcomings in existing systems, and drive improvements across the software stack.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to junior engineers while contributing to engineering best practices and development standards.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with an equity plan.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance, including dependent coverage.
• Unlimited vacation, a parental leave policy, and a company-wide holiday shutdown.
• Semi-annual company-wide parties and frequent in-office team events.
• Relocation packages for approved roles.
• $1,500 annual professional development fund.
• Fully stocked Toronto office kitchen with snacks, drinks, games, and kitchen appliances.
• Town Halls, Celebration Calls, and company-wide events.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior