Founding Lead Flight Software Engineer

Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience

About Us

We're a stealth team building space hardware at the edge of what's currently possible — high-stakes, flight-grade systems where the engineering bar is unforgiving and the upside is enormous. While we can't share full details yet, our founding and early engineering team includes talent from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Impulse Space, the group includes people who've pulled off feats almost no one else on Earth has.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Lead Flight Software Engineer to own our flight software stack from first principles — the software that commands, controls, and keeps our spacecraft alive.

This is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the flight software architecture, but also help build the flight software team, set technical standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade software.

This is not a narrow coding role. You will own the full flight software stack: bootloaders, board support packages, and device drivers up through command and telemetry, scheduling, GNC and autonomy integration, fault management, and the test infrastructure that proves it all works. You will partner closely with avionics on flight computer selection, interfaces, and bring-up, and make system-level trades across software, hardware, autonomy, and reliability.

The ideal candidate has direct experience with spacecraft flight software, real-time embedded systems, hardware/software integration, verification, and technical team leadership. We recognize that very few people have all of this. What matters most is that you have exceptional fundamentals, have led real software systems from concept toward flight, have managed or mentored engineers in high-performance technical environments, and can operate independently in ambiguity while making sound engineering tradeoffs. You will have direct ownership over one of the company's core technical challenges.

Key Responsibilities

Own the flight software architecture, from early design through development, integration, test, qualification, and flight operations.

Lead development of real-time embedded flight software: board support packages, bootloaders, device drivers, RTOS configuration, scheduling, and inter-task communication.

Build command and telemetry handling, onboard data storage and downlink management, time management, and onboard sequencing and autonomy.

Architect fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR), safe modes, watchdogs, redundancy management, and fault tolerance appropriate for flight-grade autonomous systems.

Integrate GNC, power, propulsion, and payload algorithms and control loops into flight software with deterministic timing and well-defined interfaces.

Define software interfaces and command/telemetry protocols across vehicle buses (e.g., SpaceWire, CAN, Ethernet, MIL-STD-1553, RS-422/485, SPI, I2C, UART) and to the ground (e.g., CCSDS).

Select or build the flight software framework (e.g., NASA cFS, F Prime, or in-house), along with the toolchain, build system, and configuration management around it.

Build the software test infrastructure: unit and integration testing, software-in-the-loop simulation, hardware-in-the-loop and processor-in-the-loop rigs, flatsat-based verification, and continuous integration.

Design on-orbit flight software update mechanisms, secure boot, and software protections against memory corruption and single-event effects (EDAC, scrubbing, memory protection).

Partner with avionics on processor and FPGA/SoC selection, board bring-up, and debugging, driving root-cause resolution across hardware and software on the bench and during integrated test campaigns.

Provide technical leadership across flight software, embedded, ground software, and software test efforts.

Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop flight software and embedded engineers as the team grows.

Establish software engineering processes: coding standards, code and design review, static analysis, requirements traceability, and verification discipline appropriate for flight-grade software.