Principal Software Engineer

Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company developing systems for missions from Earth to the Moon and beyond. The Principal Software Engineer will lead the development of critical software features connecting perception algorithms with cameras, computing hardware, simulation environments, flight software, and mission operations. The role focuses on building reliable, reusable platforms involving modern software engineering, 3D computing, embedded systems, and spacecraft operations.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design, development, integration, and testing of critical features within our software stack
• Build reusable C++ and Python libraries, APIs, tools, and abstractions connecting perception algorithms with cameras, compute hardware, simulation, flight software, and mission operations
• Define maintainable interfaces between algorithmic and platform components across a large, production-quality codebase
• Develop and optimize multithreaded, low-latency software for compute-, memory-, and bandwidth-constrained environments
• Integrate cameras, sensors, heterogeneous compute platforms, and networking interfaces into reliable end-to-end systems
• Develop software involving 3D geometry, coordinate transformations, camera models, spatial data, visualization, simulation, or reconstruction
• Establish automated testing, build infrastructure, simulation tools, and developer workflows that improve reliability and engineering velocity
• Partner with perception, GNC, avionics, flight software, systems engineering, and mission operations teams to ensure cohesive system behavior
• Support software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, spacecraft integration, mission simulation, and flight operations activities
• Diagnose complex system-level issues, contribute to architectural decisions, conduct technical reviews, and mentor other engineers

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience may be considered
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience developing complex production systems
• Strong proficiency in modern C++, including multithreading, memory management, debugging, and performance optimization
• Experience designing reusable libraries, APIs, platform services, or software abstractions used across engineering teams
• Experience developing and debugging software in Linux environments and integrating software with hardware, sensors, networking interfaces, or external systems
• Strong understanding of software architecture, algorithms, automated testing, and maintainable software design
• Demonstrated ability to resolve complex system-level issues and communicate effectively across software, algorithm, hardware, and systems engineering teams
• To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you 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 the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State
• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• Experience developing software for spacecraft, aerospace, robotics, autonomous vehicles, defense systems, or other mission-critical applications
• Proficiency in Python for tooling, automation, testing, simulation, or data analysis
• Experience with 3D geometry, coordinate transformations, camera models, spatial data structures, visualization, simulation, or reconstruction
• Experience integrating cameras or perception sensors with embedded Linux, GPUs, FPGAs, or other heterogeneous compute platforms
• Familiarity with computer vision, visual navigation, state estimation, localization, mapping, or perception pipelines
• Experience with flight software interfaces, telemetry and commanding, software- or hardware-in-the-loop testing, vehicle integration, or mission operations