Staff SW Engineer, Ground & Control Services
About The Position
BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company that owns and operates a space-based intelligence platform, providing satellite imagery, automated analytics, and high-frequency monitoring. The Ground & Control team is seeking a Software Engineer to build autonomous software for controlling and monitoring BlackSky’s satellite constellation. This includes managing high-speed tasking, ground and space telemetry, health monitoring, and low-latency communication with ground stations. The role involves developing software that connects hardware-level interfaces with cloud-deployed microservices, contributing to mission-critical systems that ensure satellite safety, responsiveness, and efficiency, operating 24/7 with minimal human intervention. Success requires initiative, ownership, curiosity, discipline, and a focus on safety, precision, and testability. The ideal candidate is comfortable with modern software development practices, navigates both low-level and cloud-based technologies, and excels in a collaborative team environment. While Seattle, WA is ideal, remote candidates in certain states may be considered.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- A minimum of ten (10) years of professional software development experience.
- Proficiency in one or more programming languages (e.g. Go, Python, C++).
- Experience developing and deploying microservices in both cloud environments (e.g. AWS, GCS, Azure) and on-premise Kubernetes-based environments.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and modern version control systems (e.g. Git).
- Strong problem-solving skills and an ability to understand complex systems end to end.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills in a cross-functional team environment.
- Prior experience with satellite operations, ground stations, or others aerospace-related domains (e.g. X-Band, UHF, or telemetry).
- The program this role supports requires being a US-citizen.
Nice To Haves
- Master’s degree (or higher) in a related technical field.
- 15+ years of professional software development experience.
- Exposure to infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g. Terraform, Ansible) and container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes, Nomad).
- Understanding of system safety, fault tolerance, and recovery strategies.
- Comfort working in high-availability, mission-critical software environments.
- Active secret or higher U.S. security clearance.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and maintain software that enables autonomous satellite operations and real-time tasking.
- Develop and integrate services that interface with ground station infrastructure and satellite communication protocols.
- Build software solutions to support satellite tasking and monitoring.
- Collaborate with operations, communication engineers, flight software engineers, mission planning engineers, and other software teams to understand and refine technical requirements.
- Write clean, maintainable code with strong emphasis on safety, test coverage, and reliability.
- Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and team planning discussions.
- Support on-call rotations and troubleshooting of live system operations as needed.
- Anticipated 10-15% travel required to customer site.
- Other job-related duties as 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
