Senior Software Engineer - Ground & Mission Systems
Star Catcher, a startup building a space-based power grid, seeks a Senior Software Engineer in Jacksonville, FL to lead ground segment and mission systems software: telemetry ingestion/pipelines, command planning, mission ops tooling, and ground/flight interfaces. Core stack includes Python/C++/Go, streaming systems (Kafka-like), Docker/Kubernetes, cloud, and observability tooling.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Jacksonville, Florida, United States
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 10+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline
- 10+ years of professional experience building production software systems with demonstrated architecture ownership
- Proficiency in one or more of Python, C++, Go, or similar languages
- Experience with databases (relational and time-series), REST/gRPC APIs, and service-oriented/microservices architecture
- Experience with distributed systems design and structured workflow tools for requirements, configuration management, and change control
- Experience with telemetry and command processing standards (e.g., CCSDS, XTCE) and real-time data streaming (Kafka, RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ)
- Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code
- Experience with observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch)
- Familiarity with mission operations concepts (pass scheduling, command sequencing, anomaly/limit monitoring)
- Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure, or GovCloud) and CI/CD pipelines
- Working knowledge of Git and collaborative software development workflows
- Must be a U.S. person (citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual) per ITAR or eligible for required authorizations
Nice to have
- Experience with mission operations, ground segment, or telemetry/command systems for spacecraft or real-time platforms
- Experience integrating software with hardware test benches or lab equipment
- Experience with network storage systems, Gigabit Ethernet, or InfiniBand
- Working knowledge of authentication and access-control schemes (e.g., RADIUS, LDAP)
- Experience with embedded security and encryption for data and command protection
- DevSecOps and test automation experience using Python or similar
- Familiarity with Linux development environments and tooling
- Experience in a fast-paced startup or early-stage engineering environment
- Experience mentoring engineers or establishing team-wide software standards
Full description
Power the future of Space at Star Catcher
Star Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy.
Today’s spacecraft must generate all of their own power, which caps what they can do and how long they can operate. But what if they could “plug” into a grid, the way buildings do on Earth? Instead of cables and outlets, Star Catcher is building the technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft’s existing solar panels when and where they need it.
Be an early member of a team building an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale to power the next frontier.
Star Catcher Industries, Inc., located in Jacksonville, Florida, has an opportunity for a Senior Software Engineer - Ground & Mission Systems to support the development of space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network, its orbital power grid.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead ground segment software architecture and co-own flight/ground interfaces, including telemetry visualization, command planning, and data processing pipelines for mission operations.
- Lead full software development lifecycle execution for ground and mission systems, including requirements flow-down, design, hardware/software integration and test, verification, transition to production, and fielded product support.
- Architect real-time and near-real-time telemetry ingestion, processing, and storage pipelines, including frame/packet decommutation, time-series storage, and limit-checking/alerting for spacecraft health and status.
- Define command planning, sequencing, and validation workflows, ensuring safe command uplink and interfacing with ground station scheduling and pass-planning systems.
- Define interfaces between ground tooling and spacecraft systems alongside embedded/flight software and electrical engineering teams, including telemetry/command dictionaries and interface control documents.
- Set standards for ground software architecture, APIs, service-oriented design, and CI/CD practices, including containerization and deployment strategy.
- Establish observability practices (logging, metrics, alerting) for ground and mission systems to support on-call operations.
- Mentor ground/mission systems engineers and lead design reviews.
- Support internal software architecture and code quality practices across ground and non-embedded systems.
Basic Qualifications
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Experience: 10+ years of professional experience building production software systems (services, APIs, data pipelines, or engineering tooling), with demonstrated experience owning system architecture.