Senior Ground Software Engineer I — Space Systems (Secret)

InvestedintheMission; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 198,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company equity

Medical/Dental/Vision benefits

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Rocket Lab’s Space Systems division in Long Beach, CA seeks a Senior Ground Software Engineer I with an active Secret clearance to design and maintain spacecraft ground software for multiple missions. The role collaborates with flight software, operations, and systems engineering to meet mission needs and ensure robust ground data systems.

Base pay range is $130,000–$198,000 USD in California, with comprehensive benefits, equity opportunities, and a strong focus on security and reliability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or other technical discipline.
• 5+ years of relevant work experience developing software.
• 5+ years of relevant work experience developing in Python.
• 2-5 years of experience in cloud engineering.
• Experience in designing, deploying and managing scalable cloud solutions.
• Experience architecting web-based software applications.
• Active Secret Clearance

Responsibilities

• Develop and evolve web-based software architecture for spacecraft operations.
• Work closely with flight software developers, operations personnel, and systems engineers to understand requirements and functional needs.
• Deploy and configure the Rocket Lab Ground Data System.
• Establish monitoring and alerting to detect system degradation and outages.
• Identify ground systems issues and provide technical insight for resolution.

Skills

Software development

Python development

Cloud engineering

Web-based software design

Active Secret Clearance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or technical field

Tools

Kubernetes

Git

OAuth

SQL

Jira

FastAPI

NodeJS/Angular/TypeScript

Job description

Rocket Lab’s Space Systems division in Long Beach, CA seeks a Senior Ground Software Engineer I with an active Secret clearance to design and maintain spacecraft ground software for multiple missions. The role collaborates with flight software, operations, and systems engineering to meet mission needs and ensure robust ground data systems.

Base pay range is $130,000–$198,000 USD in California, with comprehensive benefits, equity opportunities, and a strong focus on security and reliability.