Senior Ground Software Engineer — Satellite Operations

Umbra; Santa Barbara (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible Time Off

Medical, Dental, Vision

Stock Options

401k plan

Free parking

Free lunch

Job summary

Umbra is seeking a Senior Ground Software Engineer to join our Remote Sensing software organization and help expand our capacity to design, build, and maintain the critical systems that support autonomous satellite operations. You will own key backend services and partner with product owners and multidisciplinary teams to scale spacecraft operations.

You will contribute to mission planning, scheduling, command, control, and communications domains, improving resiliency and accelerating delivery

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 5-8+ years of professional experience developing highly available backend services, preferably using Python.
• 3+ years of experience designing, developing, and testing commercial RESTful APIs.
• Experience developing software for aerospace ground systems, satellite operations, mission operations, command and control systems, or similarly complex operational environments.
• Demonstrated understanding of software architecture, event-driven microservices, interface design, and automated testing practices.
• 2+ years of professional experience developing automated build and test pipelines within a CI/CD environment.
• Experience building database-backed applications and working with relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL.
• Experience developing and deploying Kubernetes/Docker containerized services.
• Experience with AWS or other cloud computing platforms.
• Solid understanding of application security, access control, authentication, and identity management.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across engineering disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain reliable, scalable, and secure software systems that support satellite mission planning, scheduling, command, control, and communications.
• Take shared ownership of critical production services, reducing single-threaded dependencies and improving operational resilience.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and influence system design with a focus on reliability, scalability, maintainability, and security.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including operations, platform engineering, and flight software, to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Participate in on-call rotations and ensure system uptime, performance, and operational excellence.
• Develop and maintain APIs, backend services, and data workflows that support autonomous satellite operations.
• Continuously improve observability, testing, deployment, and operational processes.

Skills

Backend Python

RESTful APIs

CI/CD pipelines

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

Security & IAM

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Swagger/OpenAPI

Job description

Umbra is seeking a Senior Ground Software Engineer to join our Remote Sensing software organization and help expand our capacity to design, build, and maintain the critical systems that support autonomous satellite operations. You will own key backend services and partner with product owners and multidisciplinary teams to scale spacecraft operations.

You will contribute to mission planning, scheduling, command, control, and communications domains, improving resiliency and accelerating delivery