Principal Ground Support Equipment (GSE) Software Engineer

Position Title: Principal GSE Software Engineer

Requisition ID: 1884

Position Location: Sterling, VA

Position Reports To: Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Supervises Others: No

At Trident Systems, we believe that strong engineering principles are fundamental to driving innovation and solving complex problems. We promote a culture characterized by rigorous engineering practices and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is achieved by leveraging our organization's collective expertise through collaborative development processes, which include thorough design and peer reviews. We can deliver innovative, high-performance solutions that meet our customers' evolving requirements by integrating our specialized knowledge in aerospace electronic systems with appropriately scaled development methodologies.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

We are seeking a Principal Ground Support Equipment (GSE) Software Engineer to lead the design, development, and evolution of the software platforms that control our automated electronic test and support systems. This role owns the technical direction and architecture of reusable software frameworks that serve both engineering development and production test environments.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in modern Python software engineering, asynchronous systems programming, hardware communications, and software architecture. You will define, build, and continuously improve the core GSE software platform that enables reliable, maintainable, and scalable automated test and support systems across multiple programs and product lines.

You will collaborate closely with the Lead Test Systems Engineer, Integration & Test engineers, the Engineering Systems Integration Engineer, and other cross-functional stakeholders to ensure the GSE software platform aligns with organizational needs and supports long-term engineering infrastructure.

Success in this role is measured by:

• Robustness, stability, and maintainability of the core platform
• Reliability and uptime of production test operations
• Measurable productivity gains for engineering and test teams
• Effective reuse of frameworks across projects and programs
• The ability to support increasingly sophisticated automated GSE and test systems

What Makes This Role Distinct?

This is not a QA automation or web application role. The Principal GSE Software Engineer:

• Defines and owns the reusable software platform that powers automated electronic test systems and Ground Support Equipment.
• Sets the technical direction and architecture for long-lived engineering infrastructure supporting multiple products and programs.
• Operates at the intersection of software engineering, hardware control, and systems integration to enable sophisticated, mission-critical automated test and support operations.

In this role, you will be the technical leader ensuring that our GSE software platform is robust, extensible, and capable of supporting increasingly complex automated systems-directly influencing engineering efficiency, product quality, and production reliability.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Define the overarching GSE software platform architecture, including standards, design principles, and best practices.
• Design scalable asynchronous software architectures for concurrent control of instruments and support equipment.
• Lead the development of reusable Python frameworks that underpin automated GSE and test systems.
• Establish clear abstractions, interfaces, and patterns for instruments, communication buses, and test procedures.
• Evaluate and select tools, libraries, and technologies for the GSE software stack, providing well-reasoned recommendations and tradeoff analyses.

Framework & Platform Development

• Develop reusable instruments and communication abstractions that can be applied consistently across diverse projects and test systems.
• Architect and implement execution frameworks for sequencing, scheduling, concurrency, error handling, logging, and health monitoring.
• Design and build measurement acquisition, data processing, and results management software integrated with enterprise engineering tools and data systems.
• Implement robust configuration, deployment, and monitoring mechanisms for GSE software in both laboratory and production environments.

System Integration & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with the Lead Test Systems Engineer to co-develop the framework architecture that underpins all automated test systems.
• Work with Integration & Test engineers to translate I&T requirements into reliable, maintainable automated test procedures on the GSE platform.
• Collaborate with the Engineering Systems Integration Engineer to integrate GSE software with enterprise systems (e.g., engineering databases, PLM, configuration management, data repositories).
• Provide expert support to production test operations, including diagnosing complex system issues, improving performance, and enhancing reliability.

Engineering Excellence & Mentorship

• Champion professional software engineering practices, including code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, documentation, and configuration management.
• Mentor and coach software and test engineers in asynchronous programming, software architecture, and best practices for automated test and GSE systems.
• Drive continuous improvement in coding standards, design guidelines, and development workflows for the GSE software ecosystem.
• Lead root-cause analysis efforts for complex GSE software issues and implement durable corrective actions that improve system behavior over time.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related technical discipline.
• 9+ years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree OR 7+ years with a graduate degree.
• Extensive professional experience developing software in Python.
• Expert-level proficiency with asyncio and concurrent/asynchronous programming paradigms.
• Significant experience communicating with hardware devices (e.g., instruments, controllers, embedded systems).
• Strong background in software architecture and object-oriented design for complex or distributed systems.
• Demonstrated ability to debug, stabilize, and optimize complex software systems that interact with physical hardware.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across disciplines including software, test, systems, electrical, and manufacturing engineering.
• Experience providing technical leadership or architectural direction for a software platform or framework.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with automated electronic test systems and Ground Support Equipment (GSE) in aerospace, defense, or complex electronics environments.
• Hands-on experience with SCPI, PyVISA, serial interfaces, CAN, TCP/IP, and other common instrument/control protocols.
• Background in manufacturing or production test environments, particularly those involving high-reliability or safety-critical systems.
• Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronics Technology, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a closely related field.
• Proven track record developing reusable software frameworks or platforms adopted by multiple teams or programs.
• Experience designing systems for long-term maintainability, scalability, and reuse within engineering and production organizations.

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $111,000 - $206,000

Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
  • Medical
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Basic life with AD&D
  • Short term disability
  • Long term disability
  • Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
  • Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position.

Trident Solutions is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact [email protected].

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)