Senior Embedded Software Designer (6+ month Contract)

LinuxCareers; Toronto; On-site; CAD 96,000 - 138,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity plan

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Unlimited vacation

Parental leave policy

Relocation packages

Professional development fund

Job summary

Kepler Communications is seeking a Senior Embedded Software Engineer for a 6+ month contract to develop and maintain reliable embedded software for spacecraft and ground systems supporting a growing satellite fleet.

Your work will focus on high-reliability embedded Linux/RTOS environments, low-level components, and secure communications, with opportunities for technical leadership and mentorship of junior engineers.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in embedded software for high-reliability systems.
• Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE or equivalent.
• Strong fundamentals: design, debugging, testing, performance analysis, maintainable code.
• Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems with hardware interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN).
• Experience with embedded Linux and/or RTOS (Yocto/OpenEmbedded, FreeRTOS).
• Experience developing kernel modules, device drivers, and device tree integrations.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain embedded software for spacecraft and ground systems.
• Develop secure comms: encryption, authentication, key exchange for data links.
• Build low-level components: drivers, kernel modules, hardware interfaces.
• Create automated tests, validation tools, and documentation.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship in reviews and architecture discussions.

Skills

C/C++

Embedded systems

Linux/RTOS

Git

System design

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Computer Engineering / Electrical Engineering

Tools

Yocto/OpenEmbedded

FreeRTOS

Job description

Kepler Communications operates a commercial optical data relay constellation of 33+ satellites providing on-orbit connectivity. This role is a 6+ month contract for a Senior Embedded Software Engineer focused on developing and maintaining reliable embedded software for both spacecraft and ground-based systems supporting a growing fleet of satellites.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and maintain reliable, high-quality embedded software for spacecraft and ground-based systems supporting a growing satellite fleet
• Design and implement secure communications capabilities, including encryption, authentication, and key exchange for next-generation data links
• Build and maintain low-level software components including device drivers, kernel modules, hardware interfaces, and platform services
• Develop automated tests, validation tools, and technical documentation to support robust software delivery and long-term maintainability
• Participate in software architecture discussions, design reviews, and code reviews; provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers

What You Need

• 6+ years of experience developing embedded software for complex, high-reliability systems
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong software engineering fundamentals including system design, debugging, testing, performance analysis, and maintainable code development
• Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems, including concurrency, interrupt handling, memory-mapped peripherals, and hardware communication interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN)
• Experience developing software for embedded Linux and/or RTOS environments, including familiarity with Yocto/OpenEmbedded and FreeRTOS
• Experience developing low-level embedded Linux components including kernel modules, device drivers, and device tree integrations
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills; proficiency with Git-based version control and code review practices

Nice to Have

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
• Experience developing software for aerospace applications
• Experience implementing embedded security solutions such as secure boot, HSMs, certificate/key management, and encrypted communications
• Familiarity with Linux networking concepts including routing, interfaces, netlink, and packet-processing pipelines
• Experience developing multi-stage bootloaders
• Strong knowledge of computer networking and modern networking protocols
• Experience with RTL (Verilog and/or VHDL) and embedded SoCs

Competitive compensation with a robust equity plan. Health, dental, and vision insurance including dependents. Unlimited vacation, supportive parental leave policy, company-wide holiday shutdown, semi-annual company-wide parties, frequent in-office team events, relocation packages available, $1,500 annual professional development fund.