Platform Engineer II

ABOUTFirefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company on a mission to reliably and repeatedly launch, land, and operate space systems from Earth to the Moon and beyond. As the partner of choice for critical space missions, Firefly is the first commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with 24-hour notice and the first company to achieve a successful Moon landing.

Headquartered in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space.

SUMMARY Our computer vision system that landed on the moon combines a flexible, multi-camera hardware architecture with onboard perception, navigation, and state estimation. Firefly is seeking a Platform Engineer to lead the development of critical C++ platform software and firmware across our onboard software  this role, you will build the systems software, libraries, and interfaces that connect perception algorithms with cameras, compute hardware, and flight software.

You will own core components of our customer-facing SDK, develop general onboard applications, and work hands-on with hardware teams to integrate sensors and compute platforms into reliable end-to-end systems. You will work at the intersection of modern C++ software engineering, embedded systems, and spacecraft operations to create a reliable, reusable platform capable of supporting missions beyond the laboratory and beyond Earth.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in modern C++ and low-level systems software, an interest in expanding into computer vision and spacecraft applications, and an appetite for solving complex problems where software, hardware, and mission requirements meet.

This position is strongly preferred to be based onsite at Firefly Aerospaces facility in Littleton, Colorado, with Austin, Texas, also available as an onsite option. Fully remote candidates may be considered for highly qualified individuals, provided they can travel to Austin for approximately one week every other monthup to six weeks annually to support Assembly, Integration & Test (AI&T) activities and mission operations.

Additional travel may occasionally be required based on program needsRESPONSIBILITIESDesign, 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 SDKHelp 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 engineersQUALIFICATIONSRequired

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience may be considered3+ 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…