Software Engineer, Software Modernization & Backend Systems

The Aerospace Corporation is the trusted partner to the nation’s space programs, solving the hardest problems and providing unmatched technical expertise. As the operator of a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we are broadly engaged across all aspects of space— delivering innovative solutions that span satellite, launch, ground, and cyber systems for defense, civil and commercial customers. When you join our team, you’ll be part of a special collection of problem solvers, thought leaders, and innovators.

Join us and take your place in space.

The Information Systems and Cyber Division (ISCD) integrates modern software technologies—including elastic compute clouds, containerization, microservices, real-time operating systems, and visualization frameworks—with expertise in cyber security, software architecture, software engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, process improvement, and software development to deliver resilient, high‑performance software systems for Intelligence Community, DoD, and civilian customers.

The Software Tools & Assurance Department advances modern software engineering and digital engineering practices to deliver responsive and reliable mission software, with a focus on cloud platforms, microservices, workflow automation, and system modernization.

• This is a full-time position based in El Segundo, CA.

• Providing software systems engineering skills to space, ground, and launch systems in the national security, civil, and commercial domains.
• Designing and developing backend services and REST APIs that integrate with enterprise systems, cloud platforms, and data sources to deliver reliable, scalable solutions.
• Building and maintaining data ingestion pipelines — including metadata extraction, content indexing, change detection, and automated job monitoring — that enable enterprise-wide search and data access.
• Extending and enhancing workflow automation systems, including process definitions, business validation logic, audit logging, and notification services, to replace manual processes across the organization.
• Identifying opportunities to adopt emerging technologies — including AI/ML and large language model applications — to solve existing organizational challenges and predict future needs.
• Leveraging cloud platforms and modern tooling to replace brittle legacy systems with maintainable, automated solutions that reduce cross-system dependencies.
• Collaborating with teams across the corporation to develop cross-domain solutions and engaging with customers to deliver software that addresses their most challenging problems.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or a related field.
• 4 or more years of experience with increasing responsibility in software engineering or software architecture.
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent tasks and to quickly learn and adapt to new software technologies and languages.
• Experience in software engineering, full lifecycle development, and advanced problem solving.
• Experience in at least one of the following areas:
• Modernizing legacy or multi-system pipelines into unified, maintainable, automated software applications.
• Designing and maintaining backend services and REST APIs using modern frameworks (e.g., Spring Boot) with integrations across enterprise services, workflow systems, and cloud environments.
• AI/ML applications, including large language models (LLM), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or NLP.
• Building or extending data ingestion pipelines — including large-scale content ingestion, metadata extraction, change detection, indexing, and automated job monitoring.
• Cloud and microservices architecture, including managed services for compute, storage, and monitoring.
• Experience integrating systems across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments, including Linux-based deployments and enterprise search ecosystems.
• Agile methodologies, Dev Ops, and CI/CD practices to deliver…