Platform Engineer II

Summary

Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company developing systems for missions from Earth to the Moon and beyond. The Platform Engineer will lead the development, integration, and testing of C++ platform software, firmware, SDK components, and onboard applications that connect perception algorithms with cameras, sensors, compute hardware, and flight software.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, integrate, and test critical features within our onboard C++ software stack
• Build and maintain core components of the Sol3 SDK, including reusable C++ libraries, APIs, tools, and abstractions used across engineering teams
• Write general systems software involving inter-process communication (IPC), device and sensor interfaces (GMSL, I2C, SPI), and networking (TCP/IP, UDP, Spacelink, CCSDS)
• Develop and optimize multithreaded, low-latency software for compute-, memory-, and bandwidth-constrained embedded environments
• Integrate cameras, sensors, heterogeneous compute platforms, and networking interfaces into reliable end-to-end systems
• Partner with hardware teams to test user flows from their perspective and implement solutions that can be integrated into the SDK
• Help integrate the perception team's algorithms into Sol3 SDK core components, defining maintainable interfaces between algorithmic and platform code
• Develop onboard applications supporting perception, navigation, and mission operations
• Support software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, spacecraft integration, mission simulation, and flight operations activities
• Diagnose complex system-level issues spanning software, firmware, and hardware; contribute to architectural decisions, conduct technical reviews, and mentor other engineers

Skills

• • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience may be considered
• • 3+ years of professional software engineering experience developing complex production systems
• • Experience developing and debugging software in embedded Linux environments and integrating software with hardware, sensors, and external systems
• • Strong proficiency in modern C++, including multithreading, memory management, debugging, and performance optimization
• • Experience writing general systems software: IPC mechanisms, hardware buses and sensor interfaces (e.g., GMSL, I2C, SPI), and network protocols (e.g., TCP/IP)
• • Experience designing reusable libraries, APIs, platform services, or SDK components used across engineering teams
• • 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
• This position may be based onsite at Firefly Aerospace's facilities in Littleton, Colorado or Austin, Texas
• Fully remote candidates may also be considered, provided they can travel to Austin for approximately one week every other month—up to six weeks annually—to support Assembly, Integration & Test (AI&T) activities and mission operations
• 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 or firmware for spacecraft, aerospace, robotics, autonomous vehicles, defense systems, or other mission-critical applications
• • 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 3D geometry, coordinate transformations, camera models, or spatial data structures
• • Proficiency in Python for tooling, automation, and testing
• • Experience with flight software interfaces, telemetry and commanding, software- or hardware-in-the-loop testing, vehicle integration, or mission operations

Qualifications

Must Haves

• • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience may be considered
• • 3+ years of professional software engineering experience developing complex production systems
• • Experience developing and debugging software in embedded Linux environments and integrating software with hardware, sensors, and external systems
• • Strong proficiency in modern C++, including multithreading, memory management, debugging, and performance optimization
• • Experience writing general systems software: IPC mechanisms, hardware buses and sensor interfaces (e.g., GMSL, I2C, SPI), and network protocols (e.g., TCP/IP)
• • Experience designing reusable libraries, APIs, platform services, or SDK components used across engineering teams
• • 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
• This position may be based onsite at Firefly Aerospace's facilities in Littleton, Colorado or Austin, Texas
• Fully remote candidates may also be considered, provided they can travel to Austin for approximately one week every other month—up to six weeks annually—to support Assembly, Integration & Test (AI&T) activities and mission operations
• 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

Nice to Haves

• • Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• • Experience developing software or firmware for spacecraft, aerospace, robotics, autonomous vehicles, defense systems, or other mission-critical applications
• • 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 3D geometry, coordinate transformations, camera models, or spatial data structures
• • Proficiency in Python for tooling, automation, and testing
• • Experience with flight software interfaces, telemetry and commanding, software- or hardware-in-the-loop testing, vehicle integration, or mission operations

Benefits

• Generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles
• Parental leave
• Educational reimbursement
• Short term disability
• Flexible PTO options