Principal Embedded Systems Security Engineer

Title: Principal Embedded Systems Security Engineer Location: Denver, CO or Long Beach, CA

YOUR MISSION

Embedded systems security for space operations poses unique challenges: remote systems that must operate in adversarial RF environments, resource- constrained hardware, and trade-offs between security and performance in real-time systems. As our Principal Embedded Systems Security Engineer, you'll own the security of our spacecraft, radio systems, and hardware platforms. You'll build security platforms and foundational services that enable our hardware and software teams to develop secure embedded systems by default. This role demands deep security expertise and the rigor that comes from engineering systems that cannot fail. As part of the Platform Security team, you'll work hands-on across C++ flight software, embedded C firmware within microcontrollers and radiation-hardened SoCs, FPGA designs, and real-time operating systems. Your work will impact the spacecraft's critical subsystems, from flight computer through command and control, RF, and payload. If you've secured systems where failure means loss of life or national security impact, you'll understand the constraints and rigor required here. This is a hands-on technical leadership role combining deep hardware security expertise with strong software engineering skills. You will write production code and build the tooling, test frameworks, and security validation platforms that harden our embedded systems at scale. You'll tackle novel security challenges that don't have an established playbook as we aim to set the standard for space-based security. In our AI-native environment, you'll use AI to accelerate your work and help solve the hard problems of embedded systems security.

This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Own the security architecture, threat modeling, and defensive controls for our spacecraft platform. This spans the flight computer, subsystem firmware, FPGA gateware, cryptographic implementations, and secure boot.
• Architect and build the security platforms, tooling, and foundational services that make secure-by-default the standard across flight software, firmware, and hardware configuration.
• Design and implement PKI for resource-constrained spacecraft, covering device authentication, firmware signing and verification, secure boot, lifecycle management, and secure key storage.
• Architect cryptographic and security implementations to meet stringent government standards, including FIPS 140-3, CNSA 2.0, and CCSDS
• Space Data Link Security (SDLS), and drive the migration to post-quantum cryptography across the platform.
• Secure the flight software build and deployment pipeline by hardening the tooling itself and protecting the supply-chain integrity of build outputs, dependencies, and third-party components.
• Secure our test environments against supply-chain attacks while keeping them representative of the flight security posture, so we can exercise on the ground the controls used to protect the spacecraft in orbit.
• Lead security assessments and penetration testing against our spacecraft, RF systems, and test environments.
• Drive the adoption of secure design practices across the organization, partnering with flight software, hardware, and test engineering teams to embed security into the full development and validation lifecycle.
• Tackle novel security challenges in space-based systems where established solutions don't exist, and stay ahead of emerging embedded and RF threats to proactively harden our systems.
• Use AI to move faster — accelerating development, analyzing security data, and closing technical knowledge gaps.

Required Qualifications

• Active security clearance, or the ability to obtain and maintain one.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in embedded, hardware, and firmware security — including hardware attack surfaces, side-channel and fault-injection attacks, firmware security, secure boot, and hardware security modules (HSMs).
• Strong software development skills in C and C++, plus solid engineering fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, API design, and debugging
• production systems) and comfort working across multiple languages and at low levels (assembly, firmware).
• Proven track record of building production security platforms, tooling, and foundational services used by hardware and embedded engineering teams.
• Deep, expert-level PKI knowledge with hands-on experience designing and operating PKI for embedded and resource-constrained systems —certificate-based device authentication, firmware signing certificate chains, secure boot PKI hierarchies, certificate provisioning and rotation for constrained devices (where rotation isn't trivial, e.g., spacecraft in orbit), secure key storage, and HSM integration.
• Expert-level applied cryptography: implementing and reasoning about cryptographic systems to stringent government standards (FIPS 140-3, and familiarity with CNSA 2.0 and CCSDS SDLS), and experience with the practical challenges of post-quantum cryptography migration. Strong familiarity with common NIST publications (e.g., the 800-series).
• Experience applying security testing methodologies for hardware and firmware, and building the tooling and frameworks to automate that testing at scale across engineering teams.
• Demonstrated principal-level impact: setting security strategy and technical direction across an organization, independently identifying and prioritizing the risks that matter most, driving hardening initiatives end to end, raising the security bar and mentoring other engineers, thriving on ambiguous and novel problems, and influencing and aligning teams without direct authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience taking cryptographic modules through formal FIPS validation (CMVP), beyond implementing to the standard.
• Experience with real-time or safety-critical embedded systems — timing constraints, deterministic execution, interrupt handling, and the security implications of hard real-time requirements.
• Background in a regulated or high-assurance domain: aerospace, defense, avionics, medical devices, or industrial control systems.
• Hardware reverse engineering, firmware analysis, and cryptographic implementation experience.
• FPGA/VHDL security and RF/radio security.
• HIL/SIL test infrastructure and embedded Linux environments.
• Supply-chain security experience and a track record of hardening build pipelines for embedded/firmware systems.
• Cross-domain thinking that connects hardware security requirements to cloud infrastructure, network security, and system architecture.
• Evidence of practical, hands-on impact — published CVEs, security research or publications, conference talks, open-source contributions, or relevant projects

• Base Salary:  $225,000-$330,000

• Equity + Benefits including Health, Dental, Vision, HRA/HSA options, PTO and paid holidays, 401K, Parental Leave 

Your actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, location, and experience. 

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Work Location—Successful candidates will be located near Denver or Colorado Springs. While we observe a hybrid work environment, some work must be done on site.
• Work environment—the work environment; temperature, noise level, inside or outside, or other factors that will affect the person's working conditions while performing the job.
• Physical demands—the physical demands of the job, including bending, sitting, lifting and driving.

This position will be open until it is successfully filled. To submit your application, please follow the directions below. #LI-Onsite