Flight Software Engineer Seen this week

About the role

Cowboy Space is building infrastructure for the orbital economy. Our satellites operate in Low Earth Orbit to collect sunlight and enable on-orbit compute, transmit energy via infrared lasers, and deliver secure optical data.

You will serve as the senior technical owner for payload flight software, from architecture through on-orbit operations. You will design, develop and test flight software in Rust spanning attitude and pointing state machines, on-board command handling, and telemetry and data storage. Today this work is distributed; you will unify the architecture, set patterns and conventions, and drive the software toward a near-term on-orbit demonstration.

Your responsibilities

• Serve as technical lead and owner for payload flight software, from architecture through on-orbit operations
• Design, develop, and test flight software in Rust for attitude and pointing state machines, command handling, and telemetry/data storage
• Define software architecture, coding patterns, and conventions adopted across the flight software team
• Establish and uphold the bar for flight-quality software: determinism, fault tolerance, testability, and safe behavior under failure
• Design and implement fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) behaviors at the software level
• Build and maintain automated test infrastructure, including simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing
• Collaborate closely with GNC, avionics, electrical, and systems engineers to define interfaces and system behavior
• Support spacecraft integration, environmental test campaigns, and launch and early-orbit operations
• Investigate anomalies across hardware/software boundaries, perform root cause analysis, and drive fixes to closure
• Mentor engineers on the team and review designs and code to raise overall software quality
• Help drive the team toward a near-term on-orbit demonstration, making pragmatic scope and risk tradeoffs

Basic qualifications

• 5+ years of experience developing flight software or software for other high-reliability, safety-critical systems
• Experience with software that has flown on orbit, or equivalent deployment experience demonstrating judgment about flight-quality software
• Strong systems programming skills in Rust, C, or C++, with willingness to work primarily in Rust
• Experience with real-time and embedded systems, including resource-constrained and fault-tolerant designs
• Experience designing and implementing state machines, command/telemetry handling, or similar spacecraft software functions
• Experience with hardware/software integration and testing on real hardware
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically: setting architecture, establishing conventions, and mentoring other engineers

Preferred qualifications

• Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field
• Prior experience as a technical lead or architect for a spacecraft flight software effort
• Production Rust experience, particularly in embedded or systems contexts
• Experience with attitude determination and control or pointing systems from the software side
• Experience with FDIR design, redundancy management, and autonomous fault response
• Experience building simulation, software-in-the-loop, and hardware-in-the-loop test environments
• Experience supporting launch, commissioning, and on-orbit operations, including anomaly investigation
• Familiarity with radiation effects and other space-environment considerations for software design
• Experience thriving in fast-paced, high-ownership startup environments with rapid iteration cycles

Compensation and benefits

Salary range: $200,000 - $250,000 annually, based on skills, experience, and qualifications.

• Equity in Cowboy Space Corp.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement savings plan
• Paid time off
• 10 paid holidays per calendar year
• Paid parental leave
• Relocation assistance if applicable
• Daily lunch in the office and fully stocked kitchen

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.