Software Engineering Manager, Mission Planning Platform

About the role

We are looking for a Software Engineering Manager to lead the team responsible for building the platform that enables both internal and external customers to task on-orbit satellites. This team owns the core infrastructure, services, and APIs that determine how satellites are scheduled, how ground contacts are coordinated, how maneuvers are planned, and how customers interact with mission capabilities.

In this role, you will develop the people, processes, and technical direction needed to deliver scalable, reliable systems that convert customer intent into safe and efficient on-orbit operations. You will collaborate closely with mission operations, optimization, and product to build a platform that is robust, flexible, and easy to integrate with.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a software engineering team responsible for core scheduling and tasking platform services.
• Define team goals, and technical roadmaps that align with companies priorities.
• Oversee the development of capabilities for collection scheduling and prioritization, ground contact planning and resource coordination, propulsion and maneuver planning, and customer-facing APIs for tasking and data access.
• Ensure reliability, scalability, and performance of mission-critical services operating in production.
• Work with cross-functional stakeholders to translate mission needs into clear requirements and technical specifications.
• Drive engineering best practices including design reviews, code quality, testing, and observability.
• Manage team capacity, staffing, and growth, including hiring, coaching, and performance development.
• Promote a culture of technical ownership, continuous improvement, and pragmatic delivery.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent industry experience.
• 5+ years of software engineering experience and 2+ years of experience managing software engineering team building production systems.
• Strong technical background in distributed systems, backend services, or platform development.
• Demonstrated experience building and operating mission-critical services with uptime, reliability, and performance requirements.
• Experience defining technical direction and driving execution through a team.
• Strong communication skills and comfort working with cross-functional stakeholders.
• 5+ years of software engineering experience, preferably in Python and C++ in production environments.
• Knowledge of cloud-native infrastructure (e.g., containers, service orchestration, observability stacks).

Nice to have

• Experience in aerospace, robotics, logistics, or other domains with real-time scheduling, planning, or resource allocation.
• Familiarity with optimization techniques and how they integrate into operational systems.
• Experience designing stable, intuitive customer-facing APIs and developer experiences.
• Familiarity with data pipelines, simulation frameworks, or mission planning systems.

Salary

The salary range for this role is $210,000 - $234,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.