Software Engineer, Flight Software

Muon Space; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401k retirement plan

Three weeks paid vacation

Job summary

A leading space technology company located in San Jose, CA, seeks a Flight Software Engineer to develop and test software for their satellites. The ideal candidate must have significant experience with embedded systems, strong programming skills in C/C++, and the ability to collaborate across teams. This full-time position offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits, including equity compensation and a generous vacation policy.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience as a software engineer in a team environment.
• Strong understanding of embedded systems and resource-efficient design.
• Ability to read and understand hardware data sheets.

Responsibilities

• Define and build satellite bus platform software.
• Support embedded software environment for satellite systems.
• Collaborate with hardware and software teams on design and integration.

Skills

C/C++ programming

Embedded systems fundamentals

Excellent communication

Education

B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science or electrical engineering

Tools

Linux development environment

Job description

Muon seeks a Flight Software Engineer to join our satellite flight software team. The ideal candidate is a self-motivated versatile software developer with significant previous experience developing robust bare-metal / RTOS embedded devices or appliances. In this role, you will design, develop, integrate, and test the software and firmware that runs on our orbiting satellites. This position is based at our San Jose, CA office.

Responsibilities

• Integral member of the team defining and building Muon’s satellite bus platform
• Translate concepts and requirements into design and working implementations, supporting through to on-orbit operations
• Design, bring up, and support the embedded software environment that runs in our satellite flight systems and peripherals using ARM Cortex-M CPUs.
• Participate in evaluating and selecting technologies for our software foundation
• Write application, platform, and driver functionality in our flight software environment and teach others how to use it
• Integrate compute and peripheral subsystems in both software and hardware
• Collaborate with hardware team members on the design and bring up of Muon hardware
• Collaborate with software team members to set flight software architecture, select infrastructure and tools, and communicate with cloud backends.
• Participate in developing software and hardware-in-the-loop test strategies

Qualifications

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science, electrical engineering, or related field
• 5+ years experience as a software engineer in a team environment
• Strong C/C++ programming, with some practical familiarity of other languages
• Great embedded systems fundamentals: resource-efficient design, low-level drivers, bit manipulation, responsive software and IRQ handling, RTOS frameworks, I/O and communication buses.
• Integration and control of external hardware devices
• Read and understand hardware data sheets
• Excellent communication and presentation skills

Nice-to-have Skills

• Knowledge of industry-standard data formats and schemas (ProtoBuf, YAML, JSON, etc)
• Familiarity with a Linux-based development environment
• Experience with one or more of: embedded linux, FPGA, HW design, RF communication systems, cloud/server infrastructure, network architecture.
• End-to-end development from product concept to delivery to customer/market.

The salary range for this role is $170,000 - $195,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.

About Muon Space

Founded in 2021, Muon Space is an end-to-end Space Systems Provider that designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations delivering mission-critical data. Our revolutionary, integrated technology stack enables customers to optimize every dimension of their missions for faster time-to-orbit and superior constellation remote sensing performance. Our state‑of‑the‑art facility in the heart of Silicon Valley is optimized for manufacturing spacecraft and rapid, flexible payload integration at scale. From climate monitoring to national security, Muon Space is dedicated to delivering Earth Intelligence for a safer and more resilient world.

Taking Care of Our Team

At Muon salary is only part of our total compensation package. In addition to salary, full‑time employees receive equity compensation as well as benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401k retirement plan, short & long term disability and life insurance. We also offer three weeks paid vacation for new employees, along with 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.

Our mission embraces the entire planet and we believe our team should too. Muon is dedicated to creating a diverse and dynamic company and workforce. We believe in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, age, national origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or gender identity. We value diversity in the workplace, and that starts with our applicants. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes, and we look forward to reviewing your application! In addition, if you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.

This position requires access to export‑controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. The Company may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.

As set forth in Muon Space’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

We request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

• "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.
• "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.
• "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.
• "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.