Senior Ground Software Engineer

What is the role?

E-Space is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ground Software team. You will collaborate with multidisciplinary engineering teams to build the mission-critical software that powers our satellite constellation operations. You will develop highly available, highly-scalable backend systems using Python in an API-first, event-driven architecture deployed in the cloud using containerized solutions.

Working on greenfield projects, you'll be responsible for the entire software development lifecycle-from system design and architecture to hands-on coding and infrastructure implementation. This role combines technical leadership with deep engineering work, making foundational decisions that will scale with our growing constellation.

What you will be doing:

• Architect and scale a Python-based Ground Data System designing microservices that handle real-time command uplink, telemetry downlink, and event processing across a growing constellation
• Build binary protocol pipelines for CCSDS-compliant spacecraft communication, including TC/TM framing, CFDP file transfers, and AES encryption/decryption
• Own the messaging infrastructure to evaluate and optimize MQTT broker architecture, and quantify performance bottlenecks (MQTT throughput, QoS tuning, database writes, CPU-bound encoding/decoding)
• Build high-performance APIs for mission-critical command and control operations
• Create workflow orchestration systems for automated satellite and ground procedures
• Integrate with ground station networks and cloud infrastructure to develop scalable data ingestion and processing pipelines for high-rate satellite telemetry and command streams
• Establish software engineering and DevOps best practices including code reviews, testing standards, and architectural guidelines
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Flight Software, Payload, and Mission Operations Teams

What you bring to the role:

• 5+ years of backend software engineering experience building scalable, fault-tolerant systems for telemetry ingestion, command & control, or real-time data processing at scale
• Proficiency with microservices architecture, message queues, gRPC, and protobufs
• Expert Python skills with experience with modern frameworks (FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy), asynchronous programming (asyncio, threading), API development
• Knowledge of CCSDS protocols (TC, TM, CFDP) or willingness to learn space communication standards quickly
• Time-series databases (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or similar at high ingest rates)
• Kubernetes production experience (HPA, resource management, networking, debugging pods at scale) Experience designing and implementing event-driven architectures and workflow orchestration systems
• Solid understanding of AWS services, PostgreSQL, and container-based deployment solutions
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and modern software development practices
• Experience with message bus systems (Kafka, MQTT) and in-memory databases for real-time data processing
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/OpenTofu), monitoring/observability tools, and high-availability system design
• Experience with high-throughput data processing and performance optimization for mission-critical applications
• Strong system design skills with ability to make architectural decisions for scalable distributed systems

Bonus Points for the following:

• Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent
• Experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms
• Knowledge of time-series databases
• Background in satellite operations, mission control systems, aerospace, defense, or other mission-critical industries
• Grafana/observability stack for distributed systems monitoring Strong intellectual curiosity and commitment to continuous learning
• Exceptional attention to detail and an ownership mentality

Additional Requirements

This is a fast-paced, high-impact environment - flexibility to occasionally work extended hours or weekends during critical periods is expected.