Software Engineer (Mission Applications)

Software Engineer - Mission Applications

As a Software Engineer on the Mission Applications team, you will design, build, and administrate the mission-critical software used to command, monitor, and coordinate our satellites and ground networks. Your work spans the entire lifecycle, including pre-sales tools to forecast satellite and network performance, satellite commanding, telemetry monitoring, payload operations, payload testing, and network service coordination. You will tackle soup to nuts engineering problems, taking features from operational concepts through backend services and out to operators in mission control.

This role contributes to both commercial and US Government programs.

Role

• Lead the design, implementation, and lifecycle of software used for satellite commanding, health monitoring, and fleet management.
• Build services and tools that coordinate network operations, payload operations, and automated payload testing.
• Develop analytical and forecasting tools to evaluate satellite and network performance in support of pre-sales and capacity planning.
• Own features end to end, from backend architecture and database modeling to operator-facing interfaces and automation scripts.
• Deliver resilient, high-consequence software workflows that send commands directly to space vehicles and ground stations.
• Build and maintain web-based operator tools for commanding consoles, telemetry visualization, execution tracking, and procedure orchestration.
• Automate operational workflows across spacecraft testing, mission rehearsals, on-orbit operations, and anomaly investigation.
• Partner directly with payload engineers, network engineers, system architects, and flight operators to define operational requirements and software architecture.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated track record of end to end ownership, taking complex technical problems from initial conception to production operations.
• Strong proficiency in Python or similar backend languages.
• Experience building and maintaining backend services using frameworks such as FastAPI, Flask, or gRPC.
• Experience working with relational databases such as PostgreSQL, including schema design, query optimization, and data modeling.
• Working familiarity with modern web technologies (TypeScript, JavaScript, React) to build functional, dependable internal tools and operator dashboards.
• Experience designing reliable APIs and event-driven architectures.
• Experience deploying and operating services in production environments using Linux and Docker.
• Comfort reasoning about complex distributed state and operational workflows.
• Strong initiative and autonomy in navigating ambiguous operational problems.

Bonus

• Experience designing and operating distributed systems.
• Experience using and developing observability tools across the full stack.
• Experience deploying and managing workloads across Kubernetes, multi-cloud environments, and on-prem infrastructure.
• Experience in aerospace, satellite operations, or industrial automation.
• Experience with real-time telemetry processing, time-series data, or distributed pub/sub systems.
• Familiarity with mission operations or automated testing frameworks.
• Experience building software under strict reliability or high-consequence execution constraints.