Software Engineer - Embedded & Flight Systems

Power the future of Space at Star Catcher

Star Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy.

Today's spacecraft must generate all of their own power, which caps what they can do and how long they can operate. But what if they could "plug" into a grid, the way buildings do on Earth? Instead of cables and outlets, Star Catcher is building the technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft's existing solar panels when and where they need it.

Be an early member of a team building an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale to power the next frontier.

Star Catcher Industries, Inc., located in Jacksonville, Florida, has an opportunity for a Software Engineer - Embedded & Flight Systems to support the development of space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network, its orbital power grid.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement and validate real-time embedded software for spacecraft payload and subsystem control under established architecture.
• Work closely with cross-functional members of the engineering organization to develop and evaluate interfaces between hardware and software, and operational performance requirements for the overall system.
• Develop device drivers, middleware, and board bring-up support alongside hardware teams, including APIs, board support packages (BSPs), and health and status reporting.
• Build automated unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop test suites, using test frameworks and software coverage tools (e.g., Python-based frameworks) as applicable.
• Support fault-injection testing and environmental test campaigns (TVAC, vibration, EMI/EMC).
• Implement communication interfaces using protocols such as SPI, I²C, UART, CAN, Ethernet, RS-422, and, where applicable, SpaceWire and CCSDS standards.
• Support hardware and software integration and test activities across mission computing and memory systems.
• Participate in design and architecture reviews across the software development lifecycle.

Basic Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience: 5+ years of professional experience developing embedded software for hardware-centric, real-time systems.

Technical Expertise

• Strong proficiency in C and C++ for embedded systems, with working knowledge of memory management, concurrency, interrupt handling, and real-time scheduling, and an understanding of software/hardware co-design and software/computer architecture.
• Experience developing software on ARM Cortex-M, ARM Cortex-A, RISC-V, or similar embedded processor architectures using RTOS (e.g., RTEMS, FreeRTOS, VxWorks, LynxOS, INTEGRITY, Zephyr) or bare-metal environments.
• Comfortable with hardware-software integration, using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and JTAG debuggers.
• Experience using Git and collaborative software development workflows.
• Working knowledge of Bash/Python for scripting, test automation, and tooling.

Desired Skills

• Exposure to space flight software or radiation-mitigation strategies in software.
• Experience with Embedded Linux.
• Experience collaborating with FPGA engineers or developing software for FPGA/SoC architectures.
• Familiarity with safety-critical or mission-assurance coding standards (MISRA C/C++, NASA cFE/cFS).
• DevSecOps and test automation experience using Python or similar languages.
• Experience with embedded security and encryption.
• Familiarity with release engineering, configuration/change management, and debug/trace analysis.
• Familiarity with embedded communications interfaces and network debugging, including Ethernet where applicable.
• Exposure to embedded processor architectures, peripheral integration, resource constraints, and hardware/software debugging.

Pay and benefits

Help us deploy and scale space infrastructure that will drive our utilization of space forward! We offer a highly competitive benefits package including access to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k) retirement plan, life insurance, and paid parental leave, in addition to other benefits.

All offers of employment at Star Catcher are contingent upon results of a thorough background check and your ability to provide proof of eligibility to work in the US.

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.