Senior Embedded Software Designer (6+ month Contract)

Kepler Communications operates a commercial optical data relay constellation of 33+ satellites providing on-orbit connectivity. This role is a 6+ month contract for a Senior Embedded Software Engineer focused on developing and maintaining reliable embedded software for both spacecraft and ground-based systems supporting a growing fleet of satellites.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and maintain reliable, high-quality embedded software for spacecraft and ground-based systems supporting a growing satellite fleet
• Design and implement secure communications capabilities, including encryption, authentication, and key exchange for next-generation data links
• Build and maintain low-level software components including device drivers, kernel modules, hardware interfaces, and platform services
• Develop automated tests, validation tools, and technical documentation to support robust software delivery and long-term maintainability
• Participate in software architecture discussions, design reviews, and code reviews; provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers

What You Need

• 6+ years of experience developing embedded software for complex, high-reliability systems
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• Strong software engineering fundamentals including system design, debugging, testing, performance analysis, and maintainable code development
• Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded systems, including concurrency, interrupt handling, memory-mapped peripherals, and hardware communication interfaces (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN)
• Experience developing software for embedded Linux and/or RTOS environments, including familiarity with Yocto/OpenEmbedded and FreeRTOS
• Experience developing low-level embedded Linux components including kernel modules, device drivers, and device tree integrations
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills; proficiency with Git-based version control and code review practices

Nice to Have

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
• Experience developing software for aerospace applications
• Experience implementing embedded security solutions such as secure boot, HSMs, certificate/key management, and encrypted communications
• Familiarity with Linux networking concepts including routing, interfaces, netlink, and packet-processing pipelines
• Experience developing multi-stage bootloaders
• Strong knowledge of computer networking and modern networking protocols
• Experience with RTL (Verilog and/or VHDL) and embedded SoCs

Competitive compensation with a robust equity plan. Health, dental, and vision insurance including dependents. Unlimited vacation, supportive parental leave policy, company-wide holiday shutdown, semi-annual company-wide parties, frequent in-office team events, relocation packages available, $1,500 annual professional development fund.