Principal Application Software Engineer

TL;DR

Principal Application Software Engineer (Aerospace): Develop highly reliable software solutions used across factory floors to mission control for spacecraft design, build, and operations with an accent on full-lifecycle product development, scalable architecture, and deployment strategies. Focus on leading architecture reviews, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and mentoring teams to build engineering excellence.

Los Angeles, CA (onsite)

Salary: $190,000 - $230,000 + equity

Company

Building the largest and highest-power satellites for LEO to deep space missions, backed by $450M from leading investors, with multiple launches planned through 2026-2027.

What you will do

• Design and evolve applications improving spacecraft design, build, and operations.
• Partner with engineers, business, and leaders to understand challenges and build efficient solutions.
• Own full-lifecycle product development from prototypes to production.
• Lead architecture reviews, design discussions, code reviews, deployment strategy, and quality processes.
• Evaluate engineering options, balance tradeoffs, and drive prioritization using data.
• Mentor staff and contribute to a culture of transparency, empathy, and excellence.

Requirements

• U.S. Person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or protected individual)
• Bachelor's in CS, IT, math, or STEM, or 15+ years software engineering experience.
• 10+ years in full stack development, platform engineering, or API development.
• 5+ years with AWS (or Azure/GCP), CI/CD (GH Actions, Jenkins, Gitlab CI).
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes (prefer AWS EKS), static typed languages (C#, Go, Java, C++, TypeScript).
• 5+ years with structured DBs (PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Snowflake), unstructured DBs (NoSQL, DynamoDB, MongoDB).
• Strong REST API/gRPC, binary management (JFrog, CodeArtifact), IaC (Terraform, Ansible).

Nice to have

• Next.js, React, Angular frameworks.
• Testing tools (Cucumber, Cypress).
• Data streaming (Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Build systems (Make, Gradle, npm, pip).

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits: PTO, medical/dental/vision, life insurance, paid parental leave.
• Equity in the company.
• Fast-paced Series C startup environment.
• Encourages non-traditional career paths.