Senior Software Engineer (Space Communications)

Northwood Space•Washington, DC

21h•$161,000 - $224,000

About The Position

Northwood is a space infrastructure company building a global network of phased-array ground stations for reliable, real-time communications supporting satellite missions. The Senior Software Engineer will help design, implement, and optimize the global service that delivers connectivity to customers, with ownership of areas ranging from antenna-system control to customer APIs for booking network time. The role spans software from embedded systems and high-speed networking to distributed web services, and offers opportunities to contribute across multiple technical areas. The engineer may lead architecture for a globally distributed control plane that schedules satellite passes across AWS and on-premises nodes; develop customer-facing and internal APIs, workflow orchestration, and real-time telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) and data-transfer interfaces; build software to control ground-station hardware; and optimize high-bandwidth data movement. Other areas include monitoring and telemetry, secure global infrastructure and deployment pipelines, production-line software and testing, and simulation and orchestration software for Northwood’s antenna network and data plane. The position requires successfully obtaining and maintaining a Top Secret Security Clearance as a condition of employment. The clearance may not be needed immediately upon hire, but the company encourages beginning the application process promptly after accepting an offer. U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residency, protected-individual status under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligibility to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations is required to comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including ITAR.

Requirements

5–7+ years of professional software development experience; experience need not come from a full-time role.
Completed bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or a related major; the posting describes this as a soft requirement and invites candidates without a degree to explain their alternative experience.
Successfully obtain and maintain a Top Secret Security Clearance as a condition of employment.
Meet U.S. Government space technology export-control eligibility requirements: be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency in Rust, Golang, C/C++, or another language suitable for distributed systems or high-performance computing.
Strong problem-solving abilities.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
Experience designing and implementing distributed systems.
Knowledge of cloud services such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and orchestration tools.
Familiarity with microservices architecture and serverless computing.
Experience with hardware control systems.
Familiarity with FPGA programming and orchestration.
Understanding of embedded systems development, such as FreeRTOS or Zephyr.
Proficiency architecting high-throughput data pipelines.
Understanding of network programming and IP protocols.
Experience with high-speed communications such as 10GigE+.
Experience building RESTful APIs.
Proficiency with JavaScript or TypeScript and front-end frameworks such as Angular, React, or similar.
Knowledge of UI/UX best practices.
Experience with monitoring solutions such as Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK Stack.
Familiarity with alerting systems and incident response.
Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform or Ansible.
Understanding of security best practices and compliance requirements.
Experience managing CI/CD pipelines such as Jenkins or GitLab CI/CD.
Experience with time-series databases such as InfluxDB or TimescaleDB.
Proficiency with relational databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL.
Knowledge of data-processing frameworks.
Experience designing or implementing simulations for physical models or network movement.
Experience designing or implementing orchestration engines for distributed nodes, robotics, long-running jobs, or data pipelines.
Experience with automated testing frameworks.
Familiarity with production-line testing software.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and optimize the global connectivity service for Northwood customers.
Lead architecture of a distributed control plane that schedules satellite passes across AWS and on-premises nodes.
Develop and operate customer-facing and internal APIs for searching, reserving, updating, and canceling satellite passes.
Design workflow orchestration that coordinates satellite communications across sites, reconciles conflicts, and supports autonomous network coordination.
Architect secure, bidirectional real-time TT&C and data-transfer interfaces for command uplink, telemetry downlink, and near-real-time data delivery.
Design and implement control systems for ground-station hardware, including software that interacts with embedded systems and RF modems.
Architect and optimize data pipelines for moving data between ground stations and customer environments.
Design a high-throughput SD-WAN overlay that shifts traffic among sites, S3-compatible storage, and customer VPCs.
Create monitoring and alerting solutions and tools that support continuous uptime and rapid issue resolution.
Turn telemetry into actionable insights, support predictive diagnostics, and keep customers informed about relevant operations in real time.
Build secure and reliable global infrastructure and deployment pipelines that enable continuous deployment without relying on testing in production.
Develop production-line bring-up and testing software; automate tests and collaborate with mechanical, RF, electrical, FPGA, and software engineers to verify system correctness, performance, and reliability before hardware leaves manufacturing.
Create simulations and tools to model satellite and network designs and validate system performance.
Design and implement software that orchestrates the global antenna network and data plane.
Mentor teams on fault-tolerant patterns and contribute design RFCs that establish Northwood standards.