Senior Software Engineer, Mission Planning Seattle, WA; Remote

Senior Software Engineer, Mission Planning

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.

BlackSky is looking for a strong, self-starting and eager engineer to join our Mission Planning Engineering team. This integrated product team is working to develop and maintain optimal, automated autonomous operations for the BlackSky constellation. Scope of expertise includes software system design and architecture, data structures, efficient data storage and retrieval, software performance and scaling, and efficient maintainable algorithm implementation. The candidate should have solid experience in developing and deploying production-level systems at scale.

In this role, you will develop and track requirements, schedules, and technical implementation for a wide variety of mission planning products and see them through to operation on orbit. Opportunities will exist for production code development in Python and Go, as well as internal tooling development for measuring KPIs, troubleshooting performance problems, and identifying and correcting inefficiencies in planning algorithms. As you learn the BlackSky automated software architecture, you will be expected to grow into technical or functional leadership after demonstrated capability for individual contribution and development of expert level of knowledge of the system.

Responsibilities:

Contribute to mission planning integrated product team, interfacing with mission planning, ground software, and product engineers to plan and execute autonomous constellation operations software products.
Model, implement, and test concepts of operation for autonomous planning of various constellation activities including imaging, system calibration, propulsion, or other critical activities.
Model satellite subsystems (communications, power, attitude) using methods that are compatible with existing and future ground and control software algorithms as needed to support Mission Planning functions.
Develop production-level software in Go specifically for mission planning algorithms and supporting subroutines.
Support ongoing constellation operations and customer fulfillment efforts as a mission planning subject matter expert.
Translate product concepts to engineering requirements and facilitate review and discussion among stakeholders.
Occasional 24/7 support expected during Launch and Early Operations or Anomaly Response in support of debugging and fixing mission planning algorithms.
Independently design and implement software improvements or features in support of mission planning with minimal supervision.
Other job-related duties as assigned.
Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree or higher in one of the following fields: computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, or another computational field.
At least eight (8) years of relevant software development experience.
Familiarity with satellite first principles such as orbital mechanics, attitude dynamics, and satellite systems.
Experience writing technical requirements and driving to implementation.
Expert level proficiency in one or more compiled multi-threaded programming languages.
Working knowledge of Go or Python.
Expert knowledge of software design, maintenance, and implementation including data structures, data retrieval and storage, algorithm efficiency, and maintainable scalable code.
Expertise in software/hardware performance characteristics.
Demonstrated initiative to identify and solve problems or inefficiencies in your current field of expertise.
Possess strong team and inter-team cooperation and organization skills.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a strong understanding of audience.
Ability to sustain a workload consisting of several concurrent, independent activities.