Autonomous Satellite Software Engineer – Real-Time Ground Ops

InvestedintheMission; Washington; On-site; USD 140,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision benefits

PTO and holidays

401(k) match

Employee stock purchase program

Flexible Spending Accounts

Life insurance

Travel assistance

Job summary

BlackSky is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for Ground & Control Services to build autonomous software that controls and monitors our satellite constellation. You will bridge hardware interfaces and cloud-native microservices, enabling high-speed tasking, telemetry, and health monitoring in a 24/7 operational environment.

Ideal candidates have a strong initiative, curiosity about complex systems, and a disciplined approach to safety, verification, and testing.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum of six (6) years of professional software development experience.
• Proficiency in Go, Python, or C++.
• Experience deploying microservices in cloud environments (AWS, GCS, Azure) and on-prem Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and Git.
• Strong problem-solving and ability to understand complex systems end to end.
• Excellent communication and collaboration in cross-functional teams.
• US citizenship may be required for some programs.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain software enabling autonomous satellite operations and real-time tasking.
• Develop and integrate services interfacing with ground station infrastructure and satellite protocols.
• Build software to support satellite tasking and monitoring.
• Collaborate with operations, flight software, and mission planning engineers; refine technical requirements.
• Write clean, safe, and testable code; emphasize coverage and reliability.
• Participate in design and code reviews and team planning sessions.
• Support on-call rotations and troubleshoot live system operations.
• Anticipate 10–15% travel to customer sites.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Skills

Go

Python

C++

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

AWS

GCS

Azure

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Git

Job description

BlackSky is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for Ground & Control Services to build autonomous software that controls and monitors our satellite constellation. You will bridge hardware interfaces and cloud-native microservices, enabling high-speed tasking, telemetry, and health monitoring in a 24/7 operational environment.

Ideal candidates have a strong initiative, curiosity about complex systems, and a disciplined approach to safety, verification, and testing.