Sr. Ground Software Engineer

Fortastra designs and delivers resilient, high-performance spacecraft that safeguard critical orbital assets and ensure freedom of action in space. We integrate advanced autonomy, sensing, and control into systems engineered for reliability, speed, and scale. Our culture values simplicity, accountability, and disciplined execution empowering every engineer to think systemically, act decisively, and build with purpose. Aggressive innovation. Disciplined execution. Strength among the stars.

We recently raised $8M in seed capital and are led by visionary founder and former Hermeus co-founder, Mike Smayda .

Team / Department

You’ll join Fortastra’s Engineering Division. The ground software team is responsible for the systems that command our spacecraft, capture and manage their data, and turn raw telemetry into actionable insight, enabling reliable operations and rapid iteration across vehicles, from ground test through flight.

The Role

Fortastra is seeking a
Sr. Ground Software Engineer to own ground control software, data infrastructure, and data visualization and analysis tools that support both flight operations and ground testing. You will be responsible for how we command our spacecraft, monitor them in real time, and store, serve, and make sense of the data they produce.

You will have the ability to work across the full ground stack from low-level data ingestion to user-facing analysis tools while collaborating closely with the teams that build and operate the vehicle. You will collaborate closely with our Flight Software team. They will build the flight software that runs on the spacecraft, and you will build everything on the ground that commands it, captures its data, and helps our engineers understand it.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop ground control software for commanding and monitoring spacecraft during flight operations and ground tests.
• Own data infrastructure that ingests, stores, and serves high-rate telemetry and test data reliably and at scale.
• Build data visualization and analysis tools that give engineers real-time and post-test insight into system behavior.
• Develop telemetry pipelines that handle both live streaming data and large historical datasets, with disciplined attention to reliability and data integrity.
• Work with flight software and avionics engineers to define command and telemetry interfaces that minimize risk and simplify integration.
• Build tooling that accelerates data review, anomaly detection, and post-test reconstruction.
• Support real-time operations during tests and flights, including console roles as needed.
• Generate and maintain clear documentation for ground software systems and interfaces with disciplined revision control.
• Collaborate with test and integration teams to ensure ground systems are buildable, testable, and serviceable, and support floor activities such as test setup and data verification.
• Identify and resolve issues related to data flow, system observability, and interactions between ground software and other spacecraft and test infrastructure

Qualifications & Skills

• B.S. Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, Robotics, or other sciences and/or physics-based degree.
• Prior experience in ground software, mission operations, or telemetry/command systems
• Experience designing and building data infrastructure, databases, time-series stores, streaming pipelines, or message buses
• Experience building data visualization and analysis tools for technical or engineering users
• Proficiency in one or more modern languages such as Python, C++, Go, or Rust
• Experience with space systems, rovers, satellites, launch vehicles, etc.
• Solid understanding of networking, protocols, and real-time or high-throughput data handling
• Experience…