Senior Engineer, Mission Planning
About The Position
BlackSky is seeking a strong, self-starting engineer to join its Mission Planning Engineering team. This integrated product team is responsible for developing and maintaining optimized autonomous operations for the BlackSky constellation. The Mission Planning Team collaborates closely with the Mission Management SW Development team, owning requirements documentation, initial scope, and design documentation. They will lead SW feature development by writing prototype code and/or system-level requirements for the SW development team. Candidates should possess deep mission planning algorithm design experience, particularly for satellite or aerial imaging applications, and essential experience with various image planning logic types (e.g., point targets, strip mapping, pushbroom scanning) or equivalent time assignment problems. The role involves developing and tracking system-level requirements, schedules, and technical implementation for mission planning products, seeing them through to operational status. Opportunities include prototype code development in Python or Go, and internal tooling development for KPI measurement, performance troubleshooting, and algorithm efficiency improvements. While the primary focus is on system-level and software requirements and prototype code, a strong background in production-level software or embedded systems experience in spacecraft or autonomous vehicles is valuable. The company offers remote work options for candidates outside of their Herndon, VA and Seattle, WA offices.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree or higher in aerospace or mechanical engineering, systems engineering, computer science or equivalent.
- At least six (6) years of relevant professional experience.
- Experience with automation of complex systems (satellite, vehicle fleets, drones, shipping/delivery logistics etc.).
- Experience with planning or optimization algorithms and fluency with inputs/outputs/constraints to such systems.
- Experience writing technical requirements and driving to implementation.
- Experience with project management or software product development.
- Working knowledge of Go or Python.
- Knowledge of software design, maintenance, and implementation including data structures, data retrieval and storage, algorithm efficiency, and maintainable scalable code.
- Demonstrated initiative to identify and solve problems or inefficiencies in your current field of expertise.
- Possess strong team and inter-team cooperation and organization skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a strong understanding of audience.
- Ability to sustain a workload consisting of several concurrent, independent activities.
- US citizenship required for program support.
Nice To Haves
- Expertise in satellite or aerial imagery mission planning algorithms, specifically prior experience with point target, strip mapping, pushbroom, whiskbroom, wide area capture or stereo capture planning.
- Fluent in satellite first principals such as orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, and satellite systems.
- Demonstrated experience with modelling/simulation projects.
- Strong familiarity with orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, and satellite systems.
- Experience with planning algorithms and fluency with inputs/outputs/constraints to such systems.
- Expertise with integer or linear program solvers.
- Experience with embedded systems pertaining to satellites or other autonomous vehicles.
Responsibilities
- Contribute to the mission planning integrated product team, interfacing with mission planning, ground software, and operations and product engineers to plan and execute autonomous constellation operations software features.
- Model, implement, and test concepts of operation for autonomous planning of various constellation activities including imaging, system calibration, propulsion, or other critical activities. This may involve leveraging heritage or building novel algorithms, as well developing new problem formulations to optimize image capture planning while respecting various other constraints and activities.
- Model satellite subsystems (communications, power, attitude) using methods that are compatible with existing and future ground and control software algorithms as needed to support Mission Planning functions.
- Support ongoing constellation operations and customer fulfillment efforts as a mission planning subject matter expert.
- Translate product concepts to engineering requirements and facilitate review and discussion among engineering, product and software stakeholders.
- Occasional 24/7 support expected during Launch and Early Operations or Anomaly Response in support of debugging and fixing mission planning algorithms.
- Other relevant duties assigned.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurance
- BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses!
- 15 days of PTO, 11 Company holidays, four Floating Holidays (pro-rated based on hire date), one day of paid volunteerism leave per year, parental leave and more
- 401(k) pre-tax and Roth deferral options with employer match
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Employee Stock Purchase Program
- Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs
- Employer matching donations
- Professional development
- Mac or PC? Your choice!
- Awesome swag
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
