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NEXTMOVEFDE careers · United States
E-Space

Senior Ground Software Engineer

AI summary of the role

Senior Ground Software Engineer to architect and scale Python-based ground data systems for a LEO satellite constellation, owning microservices, CCSDS protocol pipelines, MQTT infrastructure, and high-performance APIs.

What you’ll do

  • Architect and scale Python-based Ground Data System with microservices for real-time command uplink, telemetry downlink, and event processing
  • Build binary protocol pipelines for CCSDS-compliant spacecraft communication (TC/TM framing, CFDP, AES encryption)
  • Own messaging infrastructure: evaluate and optimize MQTT broker architecture and quantify performance bottlenecks
  • Build high-performance APIs for mission-critical command and control operations

What you’ll bring

  • 5+ years backend software engineering building scalable, fault-tolerant systems for telemetry ingestion, command & control, or real-time data processing
  • Proficiency with microservices, message queues, gRPC, and protobufs
  • Expert Python skills with FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy, asyncio, threading
  • Knowledge of CCSDS protocols (TC, TM, CFDP) or willingness to learn quickly

Technologies

Python · FastAPI · Pydantic · SQLAlchemy · asyncio · gRPC · protobufs · CCSDS · CFDP · MQTT · Kafka · Kubernetes

About E-Space

Builds a sustainable low-Earth-orbit satellite mesh network for hyper-scaled IoT and Smart-IoT, plus 5G and command-and-control services, with in-house solar and satellite manufacturing.

Seed · 100–200 people

Source and classification

Internal deployment & tooling · Evidence for this classification:

committed to saving space, protecting our planet and turning connectivity into actionable intelligence. What is the role? E-Space is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ground Software team. You will collaborate with multidisciplinary engineering teams to build the mission-critical software that powers our satellite constellation operations. You will develop highly available, highly-scalable backend systems using Python in an API-first, event-driven architecture deployed in the cloud using containerized solutions. Working on greenfield projects, you'll be responsible for the entire software development lifecycle—from system design and architecture to hands-on coding and infrastructure implementation. This role combines technical leadership with deep engineering work, making foundational decisions that will scale with our growing constellation. What you will be doing:
More from the job description

Ready to make connectivity from space universally accessible, secure and actionable? Then you’ve come to the right place! E-Space is bridging Earth and space to enable hyper-scaled deployments of space-powered Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and services. We are fundamentally changing the design, economics, manufacturing, coverage limitations and service delivery associated with traditional satellite and terrestrial IoT systems. By building a highly-advanced low Earth orbit (LEO) space system—with a unique antenna design, highly sustainable spacecraft system and low-cost, small portable end-user devices—we can extend global satellite coverage, capacity and connectivity beyond legacy space services to provide a new kind of IoT platform that lets users sense, track, connect and act on information gathered, anywhere. We’re intentional, we’re unapologetically curious and we’re 100% committed to saving space, protecting our planet and turning connectivity into actionable intelligence. What is the role? E-Space is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Ground Software team. You will collaborate with multidisciplinary engineering teams to build the mission-critical software that powers our satellite constellation operations. You will develop highly available, highly-scalable backend systems using Python in an API-first, event-driven architecture deployed in the clo [... source excerpt omitted ...] rastructure implementation. This role combines technical leadership with deep engineering work, making foundational decisions that will scale with our growing constellation. What you will be doing: Architect and scale a Python-based Ground Data System designing microservices that handle real-time command uplink, telemetry downlink, and event processing across a growing constellation Build binary protocol pipelines for CCSDS-compliant spacecraft communication, including TC/TM framing, CFDP file transfers, and AES encryption/decryption Own the messaging infrastructure to evaluate and optimize MQTT broker architecture, and quantify performance bottlenecks (MQTT throughput, QoS t [... source excerpt omitted ...] protocols (TC, TM, CFDP) or willingness to learn space communication standards quickly Time-series databases (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or similar at high ingest rates) Kubernetes production experience (HPA, resource management, networking, debugging pods at scale) Experience designing and implementing event-driven architectures and workflow orchestration systems Solid understanding of AWS services, PostgreSQL, and container-based deployment solutions Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and modern software development practices Experience with message bus systems (Kafka, MQTT) and in-memory databases for real-time data processing Knowledge of Infrastruc

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