Senior Flight Software Engineer

ABOUT ROCKET LAB

Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets spacecraft and critical subsystems that keep the world connected protected expand humanitys reach to the Moon Mars and beyond. We move fast build real hardware for meaningful missions and make the impossible routine. Come shape the future with us.

While other companies talk about it we do it!

ABOUT SPACE SYSTEMS AT ROCKET LAB:

Rocket Labs Space Systems team is responsible for every satellite and satellite component made by Rocket Lab: from complete satellites destined for missions to the Moon and Mars to the individual components and subsystems that make up a satellite like solar panels flight software reaction wheels and star trackers separation systems radios and more. Our Space Systems team is made up of engineers technicians and designers who design create and put together our own satellites for missions across the commercial government and defense sectors or who build and assemble satellite hardware and software that supports other satellite missions.

SENIOR FLIGHT SOFTWARE ENGINEER

As a Senior Flight Software Engineer in Rocket Labs Space Systems Software team youll serve as a technical expert across three equally important areas of flight software development: support for current missions on orbit or in development; next-generation FSW for our future large autonomous satellite constellations; and embedded software for our hardware product lines (e.g. Gauss thruster reaction wheels Frontier radios). Key expectations of the role include technical advisory guidance and direction as well as technical risk identification and mitigation across all three particular youll guide a set of multi-disciplinary teams to deliver flight and embedded software on schedule and on budget.

This role requires you to combine technical excellence with strengths in technical planning and communication:

• Youll combine technical expertise in avionics hardware avionics software GNC and/or communications with a broader awareness of several other spacecraft disciplines such as propulsion thermal power structures and mechanisms. Ideally you have direct experience in the development integration and on-orbit operation of aerospace systems as well as exposure to embedded software development on resource-constrained hardware.
• Youll be adept at managing to a plan and comfortable adjusting in response to evolving requirements or external constraints across a portfolio that spans sustaining engineering new constellation development and component-level embedded products.
• Youll be able to clearly describe the FSW and embedded software architecture to internal and external customers and to inspire a team to deliver this vision.

Day to day your key responsibilities could include:

• Architect flight software solutions in close collaboration with other subject matter experts (e.g. Avionics HW Systems GNC Operations) balancing effort across:
  • Anomaly resolution and sustaining engineering for current missions on orbit or in development.
  • Next-generation FSW for our future large autonomous satellite constellations including C&DH GNC/ACS FDIR mode management telemetry payload orchestration and autonomy.
  • Embedded software for our hardware product lines such as the Gauss thruster reaction wheels and Frontier radios as well as star trackers IMUs EPS/battery management and valve drives.
• Work closely with design engineers to rapidly assess conceptual designs perform system trade studies develop integrated design solutions and formulate system margin strategy and performance parameters with particular attention to autonomy fault management constellation-scale operability and reuse of embedded software components across product lines.

Develop and maintain robust regression testing frameworks that span flight software and embedded software product lines enabling rapid reliable verification across current missions new constellation builds and component-level releases.

WHAT YOULL GET TO DO:

• Working from datasheets and schematics and collaborating regularly with electrical systems and test engineers
• Developing for 32-bit Arm Cortex-M microcontrollers all with hardware floating-point units on a Vorago Cortex-M4 and Microchip Cortex-M7 devices.
• Developing for memory-constrained and code space constrained targets.
• Writing portable endianness-independent code that runs unchanged across targets (e.g. Cortex-M4 Cortex-M7).
• Microcontroller programming in C/C.
• Developing on real-time operating systems.
• Writing and maintaining device drivers.
• Working with embedded communication interfaces and protocols such as CAN bus (2.0 and FD) SPI and RS-422.
• Writing code following The Power of 10 or similar rules for creating reliable software.
• Writing scripts and automated tests in Python.
• Developing for and on Linux/WSL and working comfortably in virtualized environments.

YOULL BRING THESE QUALIFICATIONS:

• Tertiary qualification in Software Engineering Computer Science Electrical Engineering or similar.
• Minimum of 5 years professional experience within a relevant discipline
• Excellent problem-solving skills
• Team player with a positive attitude
• Technical experience
  • Working from datasheets and schematics alongside electrical systems and test engineers
  • 32-bit Arm Cortex-M microcontrollers (e.g. Cortex-M4/M7)
  • Memory- and code-space-constrained development
  • C/C microcontroller programming
  • Real-time operating systems
  • Device driver development
  • Embedded communication interfaces (CAN 2.0/FD SPI RS-422)

THESE QUALIFICATIONS WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE:

• Experience with Rust
• Experience with Robot Framework
• Experience with UDP/TCP networking
• Experience writing and maintaining bootloaders
• Experience with propulsion systems especially electric propulsion systems
• FPGA experience or familiarity
• CI/CD experience using GitLab and TeamCity
• Experience with Docker/Kubernetes
• Network programming (Sockets/WebSockets)
• Nodejs/NPM related build systems and tooling
• Elasticsearch experience

If the above sounds like youapply now!

WHAT TO EXPECT

Were on a mission to unlock the potential of space to improve life on Earth but thats not an easy task. It takes hard work determination relentless innovation teamwork grit and an unwavering commitment to achieving what others often deem impossible. Our people out-think out-work and out-pace. We pride ourselves on having each others backs checking our egos at the door and rolling up our sleeves on all tasks big and small. We thrive under pressure work to tight deadlines and our focus is always on how we can deliver rather than dwelling on the challenges that stand in the way.

Important information:

FOR CANDIDATES SEEKING TO WORK IN US OFFICES ONLY:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) Rocket Lab Employees must be a U.S. citizen lawful U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder) or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce as applicable. Learn more about ITAR here.

Rocket Lab provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type 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. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment at Rocket Lab including recruiting hiring placement promotion termination layoff recall transfer leaves of absence compensation and training.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation for the application/interview process for a job in the United States should contact Giulia Johnson at This dedicated resource is intended solely to assist job seekers with disabilities whose disability prevents them from being able to apply/interview. Only messages left for this purpose will be considered. A response to your request may take up to two business days.

FOR CANDIDATES SEEKING TO WORK IN NEW ZEALAND OFFICES ONLY:

For security reasons background checks will be undertaken prior to any employment offers being made to an applicant. These checks will include nationality checks as it is a requirement of this position that you be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by the United States International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Under these Regulations you may be ineligible for this role if you do not hold citizenship of Australia Japan New Zealand Switzerland the European Union or a country that is part of NATO or if you hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality. For more information on these Regulations click here ITAR Regulations.