Member of Technical Staff: Flight Software

Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience

About Pillar Space

Pillar Space is building reusable satellites that stay in orbit as persistent infrastructure for in-space manufacturing and high-power AI compute. Today, orbital manufacturing means building a satellite, producing a small batch, and discarding the spacecraft. Flagship, our host satellite, instead rents payload slots for months to years and exchanges payloads through repeatable on-orbit rendezvous and docking.

Our leadership includes the only commercial team to have docked and undocked two spacecraft in orbit.

About the role

You will build the flight software that runs our satellites, across the full stack: attitude determination and control, command and data handling, the payload manager, the flight manager, the software that runs our guidance, navigation, and control algorithms, and the onboard AI.

Flight software operates everything on board, including the autonomy behind rendezvous and docking, so its quality decides whether a mission succeeds.

You will drive software engineering end to end, from requirements and architecture through implementation, test, and interface control documents (ICDs). We are looking for an engineer who is comfortable with this approach and who will set the standard for quality software at Pillar Space.

This is a hands-on role for an experienced engineer who is technically excellent and executes fast.

In this role, you'll be able to

• Design, implement, and test the flight software stack.

• Integrate hardware components into the flight software using their ICDs and drivers.

• Design, analyze and implement fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) strategies across the entire flight software.

• Build the AI features of the flight software: onboard inference, in-flight model updates and rollback, and runtime safety guardrails.

• Implement the command and telemetry paths between the spacecraft and the ground segment.

• Develop safe procedures for patching and updating software on orbit.

• Improve CI/CD, automated testing, and code analysis for flight software.

• Bring up SITL, PITL, HITL test setups with the I&T and avionics teams.

• Run trade studies for flight computers and FSW frameworks.

• Document the software for operators, and train the mission operations team to use it.

• Work closely with the avionics, GNC, and AI teams and the mission architect, so the software meets the mission's needs.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional experience, with a focus on flight software.

• Flight heritage: software you wrote has flown in space.

• Excellent C/C++ and software engineering skills, plus experience with Python.

• Working knowledge of FSW architectures and frameworks such as NASA cFS, F Prime, or Rocket Lab MAX.

• Strong fundamentals in embedded and real-time software, including embedded Linux and an RTOS.

• Hands-on hardware integration: bringing up components and debugging at the hardware-software interface.

• A track record of building flight software from requirements and architecture through test and ICDs.

• Experience with spacecraft data interfaces, protocols such as CCSDS and CSP, and onboard networks such as Ethernet.

Bonus

• Experience running machine learning inference on embedded or space hardware.

• Experience with fault tolerance on radiation-exposed hardware.

• Experience with FPGA development.

Benefits

• Health Insurance — We cover the full base premium for Blue Shield's Bronze plan. If you would like more coverage, you can upgrade to the Gold plan and cover the difference in premium. You are also welcome to add dependents and a spouse to your plan.

• Dental & Vision — We cover the base premiums for both dental and vision through Guardian. Coverage for dependents and a spouse is available as well.

• 401(k) — We offer a 401(k) with a 4% company match.

• Equity — You will receive meaningful equity in the company, so you share in what we build together.

• PTO & Sick Time — We offer unlimited PTO and sick time, and we trust you to take the time you need to rest and recharge.

Why Join Us?

• Build ambitious, world-first space hardware alongside an exceptional technical team.

• Own the flight software that runs the entire vehicle.

• Build and lead one of the most important technical functions at the company.

• Work on systems where software, hardware, autonomy, and operations all have to come together.

• Define the product, culture, technical standards, and trajectory of a breakthrough company from the beginning.

• Take on significant technical and organizational challenges and create outsized impact.

ITAR / Citizenship Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a: (i) U.S. citizen or national; (ii) U.S. lawful permanent resident, also known as a green card holder; (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157; (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158; or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.