Stratospheric Software Architect — Real-Time, Cloud & IoT

Sceye; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Chef-Prepared Lunches

Snacks & Refreshments

Wellness Perks

Dog-Friendly Environment

401(k) with Match

High-Performance Culture

Job summary

Sceye is seeking an experienced Software Architect to define and evolve the software architecture powering our stratospheric High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) fleet. This role owns the technical vision across avionics, ground systems, mission operations, and data platforms, ensuring scalable, reliable software for a rapidly growing fleet.

You will collaborate with engineering leadership and cross-functional teams to translate mission requirements into robust, long‑lived architecture, mentor

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 3+ years in an architect or senior technical leadership role.
• Experience designing large-scale distributed real-time or safety-critical systems.
• Deep expertise in at least one backend language (Python/Go/C++/Java) and familiarity with others.
• Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the overall software architecture across flight, ground, and mission systems.
• Set technical direction and coding standards for distributed teams across avionics, backend, and data services.
• Evaluate technologies, frameworks, and patterns to support scalability and reliability.
• Lead architecture reviews and design documentation for major new systems and features.
• Partner with Product, Systems Engineering, and Flight Operations to translate requirements into software design.
• Design fault-tolerant, real-time systems for command and control of remote, high-altitude vehicles.
• Guide API design, service boundaries, and data models across the stack.
• Mentor senior staff on architectural best practices and long-term system health.
• Drive build-vs-buy and cloud vs edge computing decisions; identify technical debt.
• Participate in incident reviews and drive architectural remediation.
• Ensure architecture decisions address cybersecurity, data integrity, and regulatory considerations.

Skills

Software architecture

Distributed systems

Cloud computing

Leadership

Real-time systems

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's preferred

Tools

Kafka

MQTT

RabbitMQ

Kubernetes

Terraform

Pulumi

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Sceye is seeking an experienced Software Architect to define and evolve the software architecture powering our stratospheric High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) fleet. This role owns the technical vision across avionics, ground systems, mission operations, and data platforms, ensuring scalable, reliable software for a rapidly growing fleet.

You will collaborate with engineering leadership and cross-functional teams to translate mission requirements into robust, long‑lived architecture, mentor