Simulation Manager

York Space Systems; Greenwood Village (CO); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

York Space Systems seeks a senior software leader to own our simulation tools domain, guiding a team of engineers and aligning models, interfaces, and test scenarios with stakeholder requirements. This role drives a real roadmap, versioned models, and disciplined release cadences.

You will mentor engineers, shape product direction across multiple simulation suites, and ensure high-quality documentation and model validation records. A production-grade environment awaits.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in aerospace, mechanical, physics, CS, or related field.
• 8+ years of software engineering or related experience.
• 3+ years leading or mentoring engineers with tasking and technical direction.
• Proficient in Python and C++, including performance-sensitive code.
• Knowledge of physics-based modeling, numerical methods, or control systems.
• Experience leading software development and release processes.
• Ability to communicate tradeoffs and priorities to engineers and leadership.
• Experience writing test documentation and defect records.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of 8-12 engineers with leadership, direction, career growth and performance.
• Set priorities across three simulation products and grow the structure as the team scales.
• Own simulation product roadmaps, release cadences, and versioning strategies.
• Communicate status, risks, and trade-offs to SIT leadership and stakeholders.
• Interact with stakeholders and customers to gather feature requests and bugfixes.
• Improve software development, testing, and deployment practices to standards.
• Ensure quality of product documentation, user guides, and validation records.
• Manage and monitor releases to ensure stability for deployment.

Skills

Python

C++

Software engineering

Leadership

Aerospace knowledge

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher (STEM)

Tools

Docker

Job description

The simulation domain owns York's physics simulator and the model of the spacecraft that flight software is tested against. Alongside it, the interface emulators stand in for real avionics interfaces, an API exposes fault interfaces to manipulate models, and a messenger application attaches for reading and logging simulation messages. This team builds new simulation capabilities, proves they are correct, and authors the mission scenarios that exercise them. When a regression test passes against our simulation, the flight software team needs to be able to trust that the spacecraft would behave the same way in orbit.

In this role you will own our simulation tools product s, not just a s codebase s. That means a real roadmap and release cadence, versioned models and documented interfaces, and clear commitments to the teams that depend on your simulations. You will keep the overall vision of the simulation domain organized and aligned with the requirements of internal and external stakeholders, assuring that quality work gets done in a timely manner. You will foster the growth of all simulation products as well as the engineers on your team building and maintaining them.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of 8-12 engineers with strong leadership skills, including tasking, technical direction, career growth, and performance
• Set priorities across the three simulation products, working through a designated engineering lead for each, and grow that structure as the group scales
• Own the simulation product roadmaps, release cadences, and versioning strategies
• Communicate status, risks, and trade-offs clearly to SIT leadership and internal stakeholders
• Interact with stakeholders and customers to gather feedback and requirements for feature requests and bugfixes
• Implementand improve software development, testing, and deployment practices that meet division and department standards for software
• Ensure quality ofproduct documentation, user guides, training, and model validation records
• Manage and monitor releases and ensure products are stable for deployment

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or greater in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or related field
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering or a related field
• 3+ years of experience leading or mentoring engineers, including tasking and technical direction
• Demonstrated development experience in both Python and C++, including performance-sensitive code
• Working knowledge of physics-based modeling, numerical methods, or control systems
• Experience leading others in software development, whether as a manager, technical lead, or both
• Experience designing, building, deploying and operating software applications in a production environment
• Experience with software product release processes
• Strong communication skills and the ability to set priorities across multiple concurrent products and stakeholders
• Ability to communicate technical tradeoffs, priorities, and progress clearly to both engineers and leadership
• Experience with writing test documentation, such as test plans, procedures, reports, and defect records
• Capable of managing multiple tasks while delivering according to program milestones and release commitments

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with both product and people management, including owning a roadmap and release cadence
• Background in orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, or GN&C
• Experience emulating hardware interfaces or spacecraft bus protocols
• Experience validating simulation models against test or flight data
• Experience designing and versioning APIs consumed by other teams
• Familiarity with spacecraft flight software and avionics architectures
• Experience with real-time or discrete-event simulation frameworks
• Experience with Docker and containerization
• Experience with Software-in-the-Loop (SITL) and/or Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) test systems
• Experience in end-to-end, system-level automated testing
• Experience with agentic or AI-assisted software development workflows
• Ability to interface with and handle flight hardware
• Familiarity with the space domain and satellite operations
• Networking concepts like UDP/TCP
• Active Top Secret security clearance or ability to obtain