Staff Software Engineer Clearance, Flight Software (Embedded C/C++)

Location: Northern Virginia or remote within the listed U.S. hiring states. U.S. person or eligible export authorization is required for access to ITAR/EAR-controlled information.

Salary: $228,000–$252,000 per year, plus equity and benefits.

Company

hirify.global designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations that deliver mission-critical Earth intelligence data.

What you will do

• Design, develop, integrate, and test software and firmware for orbiting satellite systems.
• Define and build satellite bus and payload platform capabilities from requirements through on-orbit operations.
• Bring up and support embedded software environments using ARM Cortex-M CPUs, RTOS frameworks, drivers, and peripheral interfaces.
• Integrate compute and hardware subsystems while collaborating with hardware engineers on spacecraft design and bring-up.
• Set flight software architecture, evaluate technologies and tools, and communicate with cloud backends.
• Provide technical leadership for mission-critical projects and develop software- and hardware-in-the-loop test strategies.

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science, electrical engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of software engineering experience in a team environment.
• Strong C/C++ programming skills and practical familiarity with other languages.
• Experience with resource-efficient embedded design, low-level drivers, bit manipulation, IRQ handling, RTOS frameworks, and I/O and communication buses.
• Experience integrating and controlling external hardware devices and interpreting hardware datasheets.
• Experience with government or defense projects and a current TS security clearance.
• Must meet U.S. export-control eligibility requirements, including U.S. person status or eligibility for required authorization.

Nice to have

• Flight software or closely related experience.
• Rust, Python, Linux-based development, embedded Linux, FPGA, hardware design, RF communications, or network architecture experience.
• Knowledge of ProtoBuf, YAML, JSON, or similar data formats and schemas.
• End-to-end product development experience from concept through customer or market delivery.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time employment with equity compensation.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance plus a 401(k) retirement plan.
• Short- and long-term disability and life insurance.
• Three weeks of paid vacation for new employees, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time, and paid parental leave.
• Equal employment opportunity and reasonable accommodation support throughout the application process.