Principal Software Engineer - Flight SW & Systems Modeling

We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000 experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more.

As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000 engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing.

When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow.

As Principal Software Engineer (Contract) - Flight SW & Systems Modeling you will be responsible for;

• Upgrade existing flight software for new missions
• Contribute to the development of new satellite flight software for U.S. satellite platforms
• Develop in-house tools to analyze flight software performance and assess its compatibility with new mission and conops
• Develop and execute flight software tests at the unit, module, subsystem, and platform level
• Work with manufacturing engineers to support installation onto the hardware-in-the-loop test environment and eventual flight hardware
• Participate in anomaly resolution activities and patch existing flight software
• Contribute to the development of systems- and mission-level modeling and simulation tools
• Develop software models of payloads for ground testing
• Support development of software model of satellite platform, particularly ensuring accurate representation of the flight software
• Support working groups, both internal and with customers and/or vendors
• Support proposal writing, new business
• Assess the software impacts of new hardware, conops, and missions
  
  

Qualifications;

Education

• Bachelor's degree in STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) or related scientific areas.
• Preferred: Master's in STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) or related scientific areas.
  
  

Experience

• A minimum of 15 years with a Bachelor's degree, or 12 years with a Master's degree
• Proven track-record of working with space hardware and/or flight software systems, starting from conceptual designs and tradeoffs through detailed design, development, manufacture, integration, test, deployment, and operations.
  
  

Knowledge, Skills, Demonstrated Capabilities

• Insatiable curiosity and a demonstrated ability to learn and work independently
• Proficiency in C/C
• Expertise in one or more of the following:
• Embedded software development (ARM 7 preferred)
• BSP development
• Device driver development and software/hardware interfaces (Ethernet/CAN/SpaceWire RMAP/1553/RS-422 preferred)
• New board bring up
• Real-time operating systems programming, debugging, and testing (RTEMS and/or PetaLinux preferred)
• Cybersecurity for Space Systems
• GNC algorithms design, analysis, testing, and implementation
• Functional validation of embedded software on HITL and/or SITL test beds
• Software safety assurance
• Network topology and configuration
• Simulators: numerical, emulator, and hardware in the loop
• Software requirements and configuration management
  

Travel Required

• Periodic travel (less than 20%) to U.S. facilities or partner companies
• Occasional International travel to collaborate with European counterparts
  
  

Eligibility

• US Citizenship is required
  
  

Clearance

• Ability to obtain and maintain a Government security clearance
• Active DoD security clearance at Secret or above highly desirable
  
  

Salary Range: $150K-$220K

The actual salary offered is dependent on various factors including, but not limited to, location, the candidate’s combination of job-related knowledge, qualifications, skills, education, training, and experience

Note: Due to the nature of the work, only US citizens need apply for this position.

Location: Can be fully remote. Preferred locations are Denver, CO, Arlington, VA, Merritt Island, FL, and Houston, TX

ALTEN Technology is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our Policy is to extend opportunities to qualified applicants and employees on an equal basis regardless of an individual’s age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or veteran status.

Please beware of job seeker scams and see this important notice on our careers page for more information about our recruiting process.

Compliance Notice: Alten USA is a federal contractor subject to the requirements of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) and Executive Order 11246. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Drug Screening Requirement: As a federal contractor, Alten USA maintains a drug-free workplace. All candidates selected for employment will be required to successfully complete a pre-employment drug screening as a condition of hire.