Lead Flight Software Engineer, Space Systems

Rocket Lab USA; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 164,000 - 218,000; Full time

Job summary

Rocket Lab is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for the Optical Systems division in Chantilly, VA. You will design flight software for spacecraft, lead software architecture, and mentor engineers as part of a fast-moving team delivering high-assurance solutions for national security space programs.

Ideal candidates have 12+ years of embedded software experience, are comfortable with multithreaded designs, and can obtain US government clearance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or computer engineering.
• 12+ years of embedded software engineering experience.
• Experience in designing complex multithreaded application.
• Experience designing flight software.
• Ability to obtain and maintain an U.S. Government security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Play a key role supporting the development of payload flight software for our Space Systems programs.
• Focus on deployment of novel algorithms into austere environments on Size/Weight/Power constrained sensor systems.
• Lead cross-functional teams to define technical requirements and deliver integrated solutions.
• Provide technical leadership in all aspects of software design and development starting with requirements generation and following through implementation, testing, deployment.
• Define and influence software architecture, design patterns, interfaces, and technical standards to ensure scalable, maintainable, and extensible solutions.
• Drive core software fundamentals of performance-oriented programming leveraging a variety of accelerator technologies.
• Mentor engineers across experience levels, provide technical guidance, and foster a culture of engineering excellence and continuous improvement.
• Support technical planning, effort estimation, risk identification, dependency management, and milestone delivery while communicating technical status and risks to stakeholders.
• Be part of a team of driven pioneers relentlessly tackling challenging projects, delivering on the impossible, and making an impact on the future of space.

Skills

Embedded software

Multithreaded design

Flight software

Security clearance

C/C++

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or computer engineering

Tools

FPGA

CUDA

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Rocket Lab is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for the Optical Systems division in Chantilly, VA. You will design flight software for spacecraft, lead software architecture, and mentor engineers as part of a fast-moving team delivering high-assurance solutions for national security space programs.

Ideal candidates have 12+ years of embedded software experience, are comfortable with multithreaded designs, and can obtain US government clearance.