{"id":64376,"url":"https://alion.io/job/cowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation","title":"Software Engineer, Test & Automation","company":{"id":8929,"name":"Cowboy Space","domain":"cowboyspace.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/cowboyspace","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":5,"ghost_share":0.2,"stale_share":0.4,"repost_share":0.2,"time_to_fill_p50_days":47,"computed_at":"2026-10-23T05:54:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Kent, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":100000,"max":200000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":200000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Human-in-the-Loop","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"TPU","optional":false},{"name":"Time Series","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-19T18:24:27Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-02","last_verified_at":"2026-10-23T20:50:33Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":65,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":65},"description":"About Cowboy Space Corp\nMission\nCowboy Space Corporation is solving the global energy crisis by building the infrastructure for abundant, resilient space-based solar energy. We are tackling one of humanity’s most complex engineering challenges with a world-class team dedicated to delivering a revolutionary power platform. Cowboy Space Corporation is transforming how civilization powers, computes and connects - from orbit to Earth.\nBackground\nCowboy Space Corporation is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our modular, scalable satellites collect sunlight in Low Earth Orbit to enable multiple integrated applications: transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), powering on-orbit high-performance computing clusters (GPU/TPU), and providing secure, high bandwidth optical data transport.\nCurrent energy and data systems rely on complex logistics and outdated infrastructure. Cowboy Space Corporation overcomes these challenges by enabling direct, on-demand, secure, and scalable energy distribution and data processing from space. This will revolutionize how we operate in orbit and on Earth, supporting the rapidly expanding space industrial base, ISAM (In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing) operations, remote regions, and military bases.\nBaiju Bhatt founded Cowboy Space Corporation in 2024. Inspired by his father’s work with NASA Langley Research Center, Baiju earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics at Stanford before co-founding Robinhood, now a public company that has helped over 20 million Americans access the financial system. Cowboy Space Corporation has raised ~$365 million from Index Ventures, Interlagos, Construct Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and others.\nThis is an ambitious mission that demands extraordinary talent. Cowboy Space Corporation ’s team has worked at places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Astranis and NASA, and is based in San Carlos, CA. If you're ready to solve complex technical challenges and help build the most important energy company in the world, we want to hear from you.\n The Role\nWe are looking for a Software Engineer, Test & Automation to build and own the software, tooling, and infrastructure used to verify our spacecraft systems throughout the development lifecycle. This includes software-in-the-loop (SIL), hardware-in-the-loop (HITL), environmental and radiation testing, hardware qualification, integration campaigns, and field tests.\nToday, much of this work is distributed among engineers who carry test infrastructure alongside their primary responsibilities. This role will establish testing and automation as a dedicated, reusable capability that every flight program can rely on. You will develop common frameworks that support multiple concurrent programs, automate complex test operations, and make it easy for flight software, avionics, hardware, and systems engineers to create trustworthy tests.\nThis is a software-focused role with significant hands-on interaction with spacecraft hardware, lab equipment, test facilities, and field operations.\nResponsibilities\nDesign, develop, and maintain reusable software frameworks for automated spacecraft testing across SIL, HITL, environmental, radiation, integration, and field-test environments\n\nOwn the software and automation for HITL infrastructure that exercises real flight software against flight, engineering, or emulated spacecraft hardware\n\nBuild SIL environments that support rapid development, regression testing, fault injection, and validation without requiring physical hardware\n\nAutomate environmental and qualification testing, including thermal-vacuum, vibration, shock, electromagnetic compatibility, and other test campaigns\n\nBuild scheduling, resource management, and reporting systems that make shared test infrastructure repeatable, self-service, and usable across multiple concurrent programs\n\nIntegrate automated tests into continuous integration workflows and provide clear, actionable results to engineering teams\n\nStand up, configure, and maintain test racks and supporting lab equipment, including power, data, instrumentation, and safety interfaces\n\nDevelop software interfaces for controlling and collecting data from power supplies, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, data-acquisition systems, environmental chambers, and other test equipment\n\nPartner with engineering teams to define test coverage, prioritize gaps, and validate hardware and software releases before integration and flight\n\nInvestigate failures and anomalies, distinguish test-infrastructure issues from genuine hardware or software defects, and drive root-cause analysis to closure\n\nManage configuration, calibration, versioning, data provenance, and traceability so test environments and results are reproducible and trustworthy\n\nDocument the test platform, develop operating procedures, and champion its adoption across the company\n\nBasic Qualifications\n3+ years of experience, or equivalent practical experience, in test automation, embedded software, hardware/software integration, validation infrastructure, or a related discipline\n\nStrong software development skills in Python, C/C++, or Rust\n\nExperience designing maintainable software tools, libraries, services, or frameworks used by other engineers\n\nHands-on experience testing software against physical hardware and integrating software with lab or test equipment\n\nExperience with common embedded communication interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, and Ethernet\n\nAbility to debug complex issues that cross software, hardware, instrumentation, and test-environment boundaries\n\nDemonstrated focus on reusability, reliability, observability, and maintainability rather than one-off test solutions\n\nAbility and willingness to support hands-on testing in laboratory, test-facility, and field environments\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nBachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field\n\nExperience testing spacecraft, aircraft, automotive systems, robotics, or other high-reliability embedded systems\n\nExperience developing SIL or HITL test environments, hardware emulators, simulators, or fault-injection systems\n\nExperience automating environmental tests such as thermal-vacuum, vibration, shock, or electromagnetic compatibility testing\n\nExperience supporting radiation effects testing, including total ionizing dose, single-event effects, or related test campaigns\n\nExperience building software for experiment control, time-series telemetry collection, data analysis, visualization, and automated reporting\n\nExperience designing or maintaining test racks, harnessing, data-acquisition systems, and lab infrastructure at scale\n\nExperience supporting field-test operations where reliability, portability, remote operation, and rapid troubleshooting are important\n\nUnderstanding of flight software concepts such as real-time systems, fault detection and recovery, command and telemetry handling, and hardware abstraction\n\nFamiliarity with test configuration management, requirements traceability, calibration records, and reproducible test environments\n\nExperience working in fast-paced, high-ownership environments with rapid iteration cycles\n\nCompensation and Benefits\nThe salary range for this position is$100,000 - $200,000 annually. The actual base salary offered will depend on factors such as job-related skills, experience, qualifications, and internal equity.\nEquity in Cowboy Space Corp.\n\nEmployees and their eligible dependents may enroll in medical, dental, and vision insurance\n\n401(k) retirement savings plan\n\nPaid time off\n\n10 paid holidays per calendar year\n\nPaid parental leave\n\nRelocation assistance if applicable\n\nDaily lunch in the office and a fully stocked kitchen with beverages and snacks\n\nITAR Requirements\nExport Control Requirement: To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about ITAR here.\n\nDisclaimer\nThis job description is a summary of the primary duties and responsibilities of the job and position. It is not intended to be a comprehensive or all-inclusive listing of duties and responsibilities. Contents are subject to change at Cowboy Space Corp.’s discretion.\nCowboy Space Corp. is an equal employment opportunity employer. We consider individuals for employment or promotion according to their skills, abilities and experience. Cowboy Space Corp. is committed to complying with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religious creed, age, national origin, ancestry, physical, mental or developmental disability, sex (which includes pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and medical conditions relating to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding), veteran status, military status, marital or registered domestic partnership status, medical condition (including cancer or genetic characteristics), genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, as well as any other category protected by federal, state or local laws.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9416,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":true},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Parental leave","Relocation assistance","Retirement plans","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Satellite Manufacturing","Space Services","AI Compute & Inference"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-19T18:24:27Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":31,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.706,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":64,"expected_fill_days":47,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-23T05:54:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":200000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/cowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/cowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T00:30:08Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":736,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-25T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":8929},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=8929"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/cowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcowboyspace-software-engineer-hardware-test-automation"}]}