Senior Ground Software Engineer — Real-Time Space Systems

Medium; Saratoga (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

E-Space is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ground Software team, focusing on mission-critical Python-based back-end systems that operate a growing satellite constellation. You will design, implement, and scale real-time data ingestion pipelines, microservices, and cloud deployments using Kubernetes, AWS, and modern Python frameworks.

This role blends leadership with hands-on coding across the full software lifecycle.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend software engineering experience building scalable systems for telemetry ingestion and real-time data processing.
• Experience with microservices, message queues, gRPC, and protobufs.
• Expert Python skills with FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy and async programming.
• Familiarity with CCSDS protocols or space communication standards encouraged.
• Hands-on Kubernetes in production and cloud deployments.
• Strong knowledge of AWS and container-based deployments.
• Experience with CI/CD and observability tools.

Responsibilities

• Architect and scale a Python-based Ground Data System with microservices.
• Build binary protocol pipelines for CCSDS spacecraft communication.
• Own MQTT broker architecture and optimize throughput and QoS.
• Develop high-performance APIs for command and control operations.
• Create workflow orchestration for automated satellite procedures.
• Integrate with ground station networks and cloud data pipelines.
• Enforce DevOps practices including code reviews and testing standards.
• Collaborate with Flight Software, Payload, and Mission Operations teams.

Skills

Backend engineering

Microservices

Python

Asyncio

AWS

CI/CD

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

gRPC/Protobufs

Education

Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or Computer Science

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

Docker

Kafka/MQTT

InfluxDB/TimescaleDB

PostgreSQL

Git

Job description

E-Space is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ground Software team, focusing on mission-critical Python-based back-end systems that operate a growing satellite constellation. You will design, implement, and scale real-time data ingestion pipelines, microservices, and cloud deployments using Kubernetes, AWS, and modern Python frameworks.

This role blends leadership with hands-on coding across the full software lifecycle.