Senior Flight Software Engineer

Job Description

Job Title: Senior Flight Software Engineer. Location: Louisville, CO, USA or San Francisco, CA, USA

Job Type: Full-Time, Mid-Level to Senior-Level

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain flight software for a growing satellite constellation.
• Collaborate with electrical engineers, FPGA developers, ground software engineers, and other subsystem owners to ensure seamless hardware and software integration.
• Lead code reviews and provide constructive, high-quality feedback to teammates.
• Write and maintain unit and integration tests to ensure software robustness and reliability;
• Develop software documentation and provide cross-training to other team members.
• Troubleshoot and resolve software issues, including issues affecting live on-orbit operations.
• Participate throughout the software development lifecycle, from requirements analysis and architectural decisions through implementation, integration, testing, and deployment.
• Support integration and operations teams with software-related questions and issues.
• Contribute to architectural tradeoffs and engineering roadmap decisions.
• Work with real-time embedded systems involving both hardware and software, including low-level drivers.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of relevant hands-on engineering experience.
• Experience supporting software through the full development lifecycle, including design, implementation, integration, and testing.
• Experience with real-time embedded systems and low-level drivers;
• Hands-on experience developing, testing, and debugging hard real-time software using bare-metal or RTOS environments.
• Familiarity with embedded Linux, Linux kernel modules, and standard Linux tools.
• Strong programming skills in compiled languages such as C and C++, as well as scripting languages such as Python and shell script.
• Experience developing software for microcontrollers and embedded systems, including platforms such as Xilinx Zynq SoCs.
• Familiarity with software configuration management.
• Hands-on experience with laboratory equipment and electronics hardware, including oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.

Preferred:

• Strong systems architecture and engineering judgment.
• Demonstrated experience working on complex, safety-critical systems.
• Experience collaborating across software, FPGA, electrical engineering, and hardware teams.
• Experience working with satellite, aerospace, radar, or other mission-critical systems is beneficial, although prior space experience is not required.

Benefits and Compensation:

• Base salary range: $145,920 to $191,047 per year.
• Total compensation may include base salary, bonus, equity, and additional benefits.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance;
• 401(k) matching.
• Unlimited paid time off and paid holidays.
• Parental and adoption leave.
• Legal insurance.
• Home technology stipend.
• Opportunity to work on flight software operating on satellites currently in orbit.
• Opportunity to contribute to IonQ's quantum-secured space network.
• Work within a small, senior, high-trust engineering team.

Other Information:

• Work location: Louisville, Colorado, or San Francisco, California.
• Hybrid work is available, with the option to work remotely a few days per week.
• Travel: Up to 5%;
• Job ID: 1729.
• Candidates must meet applicable U.S. export control and government contract requirements.
• For relevant technical work, candidates may need to be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or otherwise eligible for required export authorizations.