Senior Flight Software Engineer—Rust for Spacecraft

Cowboy Space; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in Cowboy Space Corp.

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) retirement savings plan

Paid time off

10 paid holidays per calendar year

Relocation assistance if applicable

Daily lunch in the office

Job summary

Cowboy Space Corp. in the United States is seeking a Senior Flight Software Engineer to own the payload software for our spacecraft.

You will unify architecture, drive patterns, and lead the development of Rust-based attitude and pointing state machines, command handling, and telemetry storage, aiming for a near-term on-orbit demonstration. You will collaborate with GNC, avionics, electrical, and systems engineers, build automated test infrastructure including simulation and hardware-in-the-loop

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience developing flight software or safety-critical systems.
• Experience with software that has flown on orbit or equivalent deployment experience.
• Strong systems programming skills in Rust, C, or C++, with a focus on Rust.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical lead and owner for payload flight software from architecture through on-orbit operations.
• Design, develop, and test Rust-based flight software for attitude and pointing state machines, command handling, and telemetry/storage.
• Define software architecture, coding patterns, and conventions for the flight software team.
• Establish standards for determinism, fault tolerance, testability, and safe behavior under failure.
• Design and implement fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) at software level.
• Build and maintain automated test infrastructure, including simulation and HIL testing.
• Collaborate with GNC, avionics, electrical, and systems engineers to define interfaces and behavior.
• Support spacecraft integration, environmental tests, launch, and early orbital operations.
• Investigate anomalies, perform root cause analysis, and drive fixes to closure.
• Mentor engineers and review designs and code to improve software quality.
• Help drive toward a near-term on-orbit demonstration with pragmatic scope and risk tradeoffs.

Skills

Flight software development

Rust

Real-time embedded systems

State machines

Leadership

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's or advanced degree in CS/CE/AE or related field

Tools

HIL testing

Simulation

Embedded debugging

Job description

Cowboy Space Corp. in the United States is seeking a Senior Flight Software Engineer to own the payload software for our spacecraft.

You will unify architecture, drive patterns, and lead the development of Rust-based attitude and pointing state machines, command handling, and telemetry storage, aiming for a near-term on-orbit demonstration. You will collaborate with GNC, avionics, electrical, and systems engineers, build automated test infrastructure including simulation and hardware-in-the-loop