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Salary: USD 130,000 - 175,000 / annual
Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits serving large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military. The company operates five satellites on orbit with a backlog exceeding $1 billion in commercial contracts, and employs 500 engineers across a 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California.
As a Software Engineer on the Mission Applications team, you will design, build, and administrate mission-critical software for commanding, monitoring, and coordinating satellites and ground networks. Your work spans the entire lifecycle: pre-sales forecasting tools for satellite and network performance, satellite commanding, telemetry monitoring, payload operations, payload testing, and network service coordination. You will own features end-to-end, from operational concepts through backend services to operator interfaces in mission control. This role contributes to both commercial and US Government programs.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead design, implementation, and lifecycle management of software for satellite commanding, health monitoring, and fleet management
- Build services and tools coordinating network operations, payload operations, and automated payload testing
- Develop analytical and forecasting tools evaluating satellite and network performance for pre-sales and capacity planning
- Own features end-to-end: backend architecture, database modeling, operator-facing interfaces, and automation scripts
- Deliver resilient, high-consequence software workflows that send commands directly to space vehicles and ground stations
- Build and maintain web-based operator tools for commanding consoles, telemetry visualization, execution tracking, and procedure orchestration
- Automate operational workflows across spacecraft testing, mission rehearsals, on-orbit operations, and anomaly investigation
- Partner with payload engineers, network engineers, system architects, and flight operators to define requirements and software architecture
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- 4+ years of professional software engineering experience
- Demonstrated track record of end-to-end ownership, taking complex technical problems from conception to production operations
- Strong proficiency in Python or similar backend languages
- Experience building and maintaining backend services using frameworks such as FastAPI, Flask, or gRPC
- Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL): schema design, query optimization, data modeling
- Working familiarity with modern web technologies (TypeScript, JavaScript, React) for internal tools and operator dashboards
- Experience designing reliable APIs and event-driven architectures
- Experience deploying and operating services in production using Linux and Docker
- Comfort reasoning about complex distributed state and operational workflows
- Strong initiative and autonomy navigating ambiguous operational problems
BONUS QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience designing and operating distributed systems
- Experience using and developing observability tools across the full stack
- Experience deploying and managing workloads across Kubernetes, multi-cloud, and on-prem infrastructure
- Experience in aerospace, satellite operations, or industrial automation
- Experience with real-time telemetry processing, time-series data, or distributed pub/sub systems
- Familiarity with mission operations or automated testing frameworks
- Experience building software under strict reliability or high-consequence execution constraints
U.S. Citizenship, Lawful Permanent Residency, or Refugee/Asylee Status Required (to comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations).
