Lead Flight Software Engineer

NewOrbit Space; Reading; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

NewOrbit Space in the United Kingdom is seeking an experienced lead to own the software that makes the spacecraft behave. You will oversee real-time control, autonomy, mode management and how the flight software coordinates subsystems from simulation to on-orbit operations.

You will design robust flight software on RTOS or Embedded Linux, implement testing, integrate hardware interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN), and lead a team to deliver safe, reliable, and updatable spacecraft software.

Qualifications

• 5+ years’ experience in development of flight software for spacecraft.
• Proven experience building production embedded or real-time systems in C/C++ and/or Rust.
• Strong grasp of real-time software scheduling, interrupts, concurrency, and determinism.
• Proven ability to build reliable, testable systems with unit/integration testing and HIL validation.
• Hands-on experience integrating with hardware via I2C, SPI, UART, CAN and debugging.

Responsibilities

• Lead the flight software engineering team and deliver the flight software elements of a novel spacecraft to operate in VLEO.
• Own the on-board flight-software stack – design, implement and test real-time C/C++ on RTOS or Embedded Linux.
• Define ICDs and build drivers/middleware over I2C/SPI/UART/CAN(-FD)/SpaceWire as applicable.
• Build spacecraft behaviours & autonomy – mode management, sequencing and autonomous FDIR.
• Deliver reliable real-time performance – manage concurrency, timing, budgets and observability.
• Build verification infrastructure – SIL/HIL test harnesses, simulations and telemetry tooling.
• Ship code from review to orbit – CI/CD, integration & launch ops, OTA updates.

Skills

Flight software

Embedded RTOS

C/C++

Rust

Team leadership

CI/CD

Hardware integration

Diagnostics & debugging

Tools

I2C/SPI/UART/CAN

Job description

At NewOrbit Space, our mission is to engineer the lowest orbiting satellites on Earth to rapidly advance global connectivity and insight.

We are currently building satellites that can operate at an altitude of just 200 km - one-third that of conventional satellites.

Role

• You’ll lead the team that owns the software that makes the spacecraft behave: real-time control flows, autonomy, mode management, FDIR, and the core flight applications that coordinate every subsystem.
• You’ll design and implement robust flight-software services on RTOS or Embedded Linux - turning mission requirements into deterministic, testable software - then take it from simulation all the way to launch and on-orbit operations.
• You’ll ensure our VLEO satellites stay safe and productive with strong fault tolerance, clean observability, and rapid iteration through over-the-air updates.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the flight software engineering team – recruit, coach, and direct the work of a team of software engineers to deliver the flight software elements of a novel spacecraft to operate in VLEO.
• Own the on-board flight-software stack – design, implement and test real-time C/C++ on RTOS or Embedded Linux
• Integrate subsystems end-to-end – define ICDs and build drivers/middleware over I2C/SPI/UART/CAN(-FD)/SpaceWire (as applicable).
• Build spacecraft behaviors & autonomy – implement mode management, sequencing, and autonomous FDIR for safe and productive operations.
• Deliver reliable real-time performance – manage concurrency, timing, CPU/memory budgets, and observability under tight constraints.
• Build verification infrastructure – prototypes, SIL/HIL test harnesses, simulations, and telemetry analysis tooling to validate designs early.
• Ship code from review to orbit – push through CI/CD, support integration and launch ops, and deliver secure over-the-air updates.
• Work across disciplines – collaborate with avionics, AOCS, comms and mission teams to trade compute, power, thermal, storage and link budgets.

Key Requirements

• 5+ years’ experience in development of flight software for spacecraft, including experience in leading engineers with flight software deliverables.
• Proven experience in building production embedded or real-time systems in C/C++ and/or Rust on RTOS or Embedded Linux for space systems.
• Strong grasp of real-time software: scheduling, interrupts, concurrency primitives, determinism, and designing for constrained CPU/memory.
• Proven ability to build reliable, testable systems: unit/integration testing, simulation-first development, HIL validation, and disciplined debugging.
• Hands-on experience integrating with hardware via common interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN(-FD), GPIO, etc.) and practical lab debugging.
• Solid software engineering fundamentals: architecture, code review, static analysis, CI/CD, configuration management, and observability/logging.
• Ability to own systems end-to-end: from requirements and design through implementation, verification, operations support, and iterative improvement.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with spacecraft flight software frameworks, (e.g., cFS, F´, or building lightweight component-based equivalents).
• Familiarity with autonomy and fault management patterns for radiation/SEUs, watchdog strategies, redundancy, and safe-mode design.
• GNC/AOCS-adjacent experience: sensor/actuator pipelines, control-loop integration, estimation/filters, timing analysis.
• Digital-twin / simulator / SIL-HIL experience for end-to-end behavior validation and regression testing.
• On-orbit operations know-how: commissioning flows, anomaly response, telemetry triage, and OTA update strategies.