Senior Software Engineer, Mission Optimization (Satellite Operations)

Location: San Francisco, CA; hybrid work requiring three days per week in the San Francisco office

Salary: $162,600–$203,200 USD annual base salary

Company

hirify.global designs, builds, and operates a large constellation of Earth-observation imaging satellites and delivers satellite data through a cloud-based platform.

What you will do

• Own optimization initiatives end to end, from problem definition and data analysis through implementation and outcome measurement against fleet SLAs and KPIs.
• Design, develop, and maintain mission-critical software that schedules and optimizes activities across satellite constellations.
• Define concepts of operations for current fleets, future missions, and customer use cases with spacecraft, imaging, and systems engineering groups.
• Analyze operational data across the full stack to identify inefficiencies and build the case for improvements.
• Advise the team technically, mentor earlier-career engineers, and represent technical positions with engineering, operations, and product stakeholders.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience or equivalent depth.
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Deep proficiency in Python or a comparable language, with experience designing and shipping dependable systems.
• Ability to turn ambiguous problems into measurable outcomes with minimal direction.
• Data-driven approach, including statistical analysis and reasoning over large operational datasets.
• Strong written and verbal communication, plus experience mentoring or technically leading engineers.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with satellite engineering, orbital mechanics, space environments, or spacecraft operations.
• Experience defining concepts of operations for complex systems.
• Background in optimization, scheduling, operations research, constraint solvers, heuristics, or combinatorial optimization.
• Experience with Git, GitLab, Docker, CI/CD, Linux, Sentry, or Datadog.
• Open-source software contributions.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision plans with a Health Savings Account and company contribution.
• Paid time off, holidays, company-wide days off, and 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Wellness and employee assistance programs.
• Home office, phone, internet, tuition, learning, commuter, and volunteering benefits.
• Equity and a people-centric, inclusive work environment.
• Access to export-controlled information requires eligibility without additional export licensing.

Hiring process

• Selected interviews may be recorded with candidate consent for transcription and summarization.
• AI tools are prohibited during live interviews and assessments unless explicitly permitted or required as an accommodation.