Senior Software Engineer

Summary

Join BlackSky's Ground & Control team as a Senior Software Engineer and develop software for autonomous satellite operations and real-time tasking. You will design, implement, and maintain software bridging hardware interfaces and cloud microservices, contributing to mission-critical systems ensuring satellite safety and efficiency. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including operations, communication, and flight software engineers, to refine technical requirements. Write clean, maintainable, and thoroughly tested code, participate in design and code reviews, and support on-call rotations. This role demands strong problem-solving skills, understanding of complex systems, and excellent communication in a team environment. U.S. citizenship is required.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• A minimum of five years of professional software development experience
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (e.g. Go, Python, C++)
• Experience developing and deploying microservices in cloud environments (e.g. AWS, GCS, Azure)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and modern version control systems (e.g. Git)
• Strong problem-solving skills and an ability to understand complex systems end to end
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills in a cross-functional team environment
• This position requires U.S. citizenship

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain software that enables autonomous satellite operations and real-time tasking
• Develop and integrate services that interface with ground station infrastructure and satellite communication protocols
• Build cloud-native microservices to support satellite tasking and monitoring
• Collaborate with operations, communication engineers, flight software engineers, mission planning engineers, and other software teams to understand and refine technical requirements
• Write clean, maintainable code with strong emphasis on safety, test coverage, and reliability
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and team planning discussions
• Support on-call rotations and troubleshooting of live system operations as needed
• Support Launch and Early Operations of new satellites
• Other job-related duties as assigned

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree (or higher) in a related technical field
• Experience working with satellite ground systems or real-time control systems
• Exposure to infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g. Terraform, Ansible) and container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes, Nomad)
• Understanding of system safety, fault tolerance, and recovery strategies
• Prior experience with telemetry, satellite operations, or aerospace-related domains
• Comfort working in high-availability, mission-critical software environments

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurance BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses!
• 15 days of PTO, 11 Company holidays, four Floating Holidays (pro-rated based on hire date), one day of paid volunteerism leave per year, parental leave and more
• 401(k) pre-tax and Roth deferral options with employer match
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs
• Employer matching donations
• Professional development
• Mac or PC? Your choice!