Staff Software Engineer, Flight Software

Muon Space; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 234,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Health insurance

401k retirement plan

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Parental leave

Job summary

Muon Space seeks a Staff Software Engineer for its flight software team in San Jose, CA. You will set architectural direction and lead design, development, and testing of software and firmware powering satellite systems on ARM Cortex‑M platforms.

The role demands a deep background in embedded software, hardware integration, and scalable architecture, plus mentoring of senior engineers. Collaboration with hardware teams and alignment of roadmaps with mission needs are essential.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience in a team environment.
• Read and understand hardware data sheets.
• Experience architecting and building embedded devices or appliances.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead team in defining and building Muon’s satellite bus platform.
• Define and architect design and execution against mission requirements.
• Design, bring up, and support embedded software running on satellite flight systems and peripherals (ARM Cortex‑M).
• Guide technology evaluation for software foundations and set standards.
• Mentor senior engineers and align roadmaps with product needs.
• Ensure software and hardware‑in‑the‑loop test strategies.

Skills

C/C++ programming

Embedded software development

Architectural direction

Strong communication

Education

B.S./M.S./Ph.D. in CS/EE

Tools

ARM Cortex‑M

RTOS

Linux

Hardware data sheets

Job description

About The Role

Muon seeks a Staff Software Engineer to join our flight software team. The ideal candidate is an expert software developer with significant previous experience architecting and building embedded devices or appliances. In this role, you will both set architectural direction for, and lead design, development, integration, and testing of much of the software and firmware that runs on our orbiting satellites. This position is based at our San Jose, CA office.

About The Role

Muon seeks a Staff Software Engineer to join our flight software team. The ideal candidate is an expert software developer with significant previous experience architecting and building embedded devices or appliances. In this role, you will both set architectural direction for, and lead design, development, integration, and testing of much of the software and firmware that runs on our orbiting satellites. This position is based at our San Jose, CA office.

Responsibilities

• Leading member of the team defining and building Muon’s satellite bus platform
• Define and architect design and execution against the basic concepts and requirements of our missions to get the right software and firmware on orbit
• Design, bring up, and support the embedded software environment that runs in our satellite flight systems and peripherals using ARM Cortex-M CPUs.
• Guide evaluation and selection of technologies for our software foundation
• Write application, platform, and driver functionality in our flight software environment and set the standards for how others use it
• Build the architectural patterns, shared libraries, services and technical strategy documents that enable high-quality and high-velocity development of flight software
• Integrate compute and peripheral subsystems in both software and hardware
• Collaborate with hardware team members on the design and bring up of Muon hardware
• Align team roadmaps with product requirements and mission needs
• Define metrics aligned with critical company goals and enable the team to achieve aggressive goals
• Ensure effective software and hardware-in-the-loop test strategies
• Mentor senior engineers

Qualifications

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science, electrical engineering, or related field
• 10+ years experience as a software engineer in a team environment
• Strong C/C++ programming, with practical familiarity of other languages
• Integration and control of external hardware devices
• Read and understand hardware data sheets
• Excellent communication and presentation skills

Nice-to-have Skills

• Experience working in flight software or some closely related domain
• Rust and Python experience
• Knowledge of industry-standard data formats and schemas (ProtoBuf, YAML, JSON, etc)
• Great embedded systems fundamentals: distributed system architecture, resource-efficient design, low-level drivers, bit manipulation, responsive software and IRQ handling, RTOS frameworks, I/O and communication buses.
• 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.

Salary

The salary range for this role is $210,000 - $234,000, 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. In addition, if you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.

ITAR/EAR Requirements

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.