Staff Software Engineer, Space Special Programs

Title: Staff Software Engineer, Space Special Programs Location: Chantilly, Virginia, United States

ABOUT THE TEAM

In the Space Special Programs team, we build spacecraft and space systems which serve a wide variety of functions in the space architecture. At a time when space superiority can no longer be taken for granted and with space systems proliferating at an incredible rate, the Space Special Programs team provides advanced, mission critical capabilities to our customer base to be able to more effectively operate and survive within this expanding environment with limited personnel. Working across product, engineering, sales, logistics, operations, and mission success, the Space Special Programs team develops, tests, deploys, and operates new, unique, space capabilities to drive mission success in challenging operational environments.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our rapidly growing team in Chantilly, VA. In this role, you will be responsible for implementation of the full lifecycle of flight software, ground test software, ground station software – at both embedded and application levels. As the lead for the software engineering team you are expected to architect the software systems, understand the full range of embedded, host, communication, data storage, computer vision, FPGA-interfacing, and algorithm implementation tasks you and your team will need to accomplish. You are expected to be an individual contributor as well as the team lead. Your engineering team as a whole must span the capabilities of deeply embedded software design, implementation, and debugging, including data protocols, RF communication, machine learning, computer vision, and implementing control algorithms in a computationally-restricted environment; host side software for user interfaces, equipment interfaces, machine-to-machine communication, data analysis, display, compression and extraction to human-useable forms; and interfacing with existing Command and Control software and databases to integrate the spacecraft systems in a simple fashion. The embedded tasking will also include writing code to operate at the intersection of hardware, FPGA, and software. Additionally, you will be responsible for helping develop the system and mission designs & concepts, and, as the software development expert, for mentoring and growing your team.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Work with a cross-functional team to design market leading hardware-based products
• Drive product maturity through rapid prototyping, design verification, and qualification activities
• Apply modern space-flight software design standards and guidelines (e.g. fault detection and recovery, error checking, data redundancy, etc.) to create high-reliability, highly manufacturable systems, and a team which implements them.
• Architect and design flight, ground, and payload systems to be able to generically implement the given mission requirements, and effectively communicate these goals, along with specific taskings, to your team
• Operate as a member of your team and a resource for them when they are stuck
• Understand the mission needs and effectively translate them into software products that are both efficient in implementing but are generic enough to be ultra-reusable for lowest cost future development
• Lead the team in establishing internal guidelines and best practices for space flight software design, test, manufacture, and operations
• Conduct peer-level and cross-discipline design reviews and develop customer-facing system design documentation and presentations
• Help drive development, integration and test activities to meet schedule
• Work in a fast-paced environment, having to juggle multiple concurrent projects and customers

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, electrical / computer engineering, or similar engineering or technical field
• 10+ years Software Engineering Experience directly developing a combination of embedded, host, and product-specific software
• 3+ years of leading a software engineering team working on small spacecraft
• Experience developing subsystem requirements and interfaces; including mission systems and developing software architectures to meet those requirements with reusable software.
• Experience writing embedded C code, device drivers, and implementing algorithms with limited computational & storage resources
• Experience writing host level code for GUI, database interaction, and protocol interfaces/translators needed for interfacing different parts of spacecraft systems together (in both cases of having an explicit ICD and having very little information)
• Experience on mature spacecraft development programs including operational and environmental testing.
• Experience developing various design artifacts, such as: Design Review material (CoDR, SDR, PDR, CDR, TRR, etc), design notes, and other documentation to help assure a team of engineers understands the algorithms and intent of the software they are implementing
• Outstanding communication skills to include presentation of developed artifacts
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• M.S. in aerospace, mechanical, computer science or similar engineering or technical field
• Demonstrated High ownership and autonomy across the entire cradle-to-grave lifecycle of a spacecraft or space system.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an extremely fast-paced, nimble, environment with programs that have limited, broad, Level-0 requirements
• 3+ years working in a classified environment
• Experience designing, integrating, and flying Cubesat spacecraft meant to operate in LEO through GEO environments