SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 234,323 - 269,600 / annual
Albedo is building infrastructure for Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites, operating between 250–400 km altitude where proximity enhances performance and natural drag mitigates debris. As Director of Software Engineering, you will lead the software engineering organization across flight software, guidance/navigation/control (GNC), ground systems, and applied AI—managing approximately three to four teams of managers and individual contributors.
Your core responsibilities include owning integrated satellite software performance (deterministic flight software, control law implementation, on-orbit and ground AI, command-and-control paths), managing simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) infrastructure that scales across programs while remaining flight-representative, and leading closure of the GNC analytical-to-flight loop to ensure anomalies trace cleanly to model gaps or implementation bugs. You will develop technical leaders across software domains, defend architectural boundaries between flight/ground and software/hardware, and partner with hardware, systems engineering, and program management to position software as a peer discipline.
Ideal candidates bring 12+ years in real-time embedded, GNC, or flight software with at least four years leading software engineering managers. You need deep fluency in deterministic flight-like software (timing, scheduling, fault containment, C++ on RTOS), GNC literacy at the leadership level (understanding control law structure, estimator behavior, actuator interaction, and failure modes), and a track record of building simulation and HIL infrastructure that caught real bugs pre-flight. Experience leading heterogeneous software teams across unfamiliar domains and strong opinions on hardware/software boundaries, on-orbit vs. ground compute splits, and architectural abstractions are essential.
Albedo operates with first-principles thinking, moving with speed and calculated risk-taking while leveraging AI for leverage across disciplines. The company emphasizes in-person collaboration at the Broomfield, CO headquarters to maximize team productivity and compound first-mover advantage in the emerging VLEO category.
