Senior Software Engineer (Constellation Operations)

Spire is making a fundamental shift in how it operates its constellation. We are moving from a model where trained operators watch dashboards and escalate to experts, to one where the system is fully autonomous, self-healing, and data intelligent. This team is building that future, and this role sits at the center of it. 

The old model relies on operators, escalations, manual processes, and institutional knowledge locked in the heads of a few experts. It does not scale and it does not belong in a modern space company. We know what we want to replace it with: SRE principles applied to a constellation, autonomous fault handling, AI-driven anomaly detection, low toil, high data quality, and continuous improvement baked into the system. 

You will be one of the engineers who makes that real. 

What You Will Work On  

Autonomous Operations: 

• Design and build fault detection, isolation, and automated recovery pipelines for satellites and ground stations
• Drive elimination of manual processes. If a human is doing it repeatedly, automate it.
• Build space situational awareness systems so the fleet always knows its own state
• Develop operational automation for mission execution at scale

Telemetry and Data Platform: 

• Architect and build a flexible data platform that ingests, stores, and surfaces telemetry from space and ground assets
• Build analytics and visualization tools that surface operational insight and not just raw data
• Apply ML and AI techniques to detect anomalies, predict failures, and optimize constellation performance
• Work directly with data at every layer from pipeline design to query

Reliability Engineering: 

• Define and instrument SLOs and reliability metrics for space and ground assets
• Build monitoring and alerting systems that know what matters and ruthlessly suppress noise
• Own configuration control and software rollout processes for on-orbit and ground assets

Mission Software: 

• Build real-time dashboards and operator tooling that make mission status immediately legible
• Collaborate directly with satellite operators and mission teams to turn operational pain into software solutions
• Design systems for automated mission execution including planning, scheduling, and commanding at scale

Basic Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering, SRE, or DevOps experience
• Strong Python skills across backend services, data pipelines, and automation. Not just scripts.
• Real experience applying data analysis to solve complex operational or technical problems, comfortable working directly with data at every layer from pipeline design to query
• Solid Linux fundamentals including bash scripting and basic system administration
• Experience with containerized development and production environments
• The communication skills to work across engineering, operations, and mission teams and translate real-world requirements into working software

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with data backends such as Postgres, Redis, Elasticsearch, or S3
• Hands-on experience with Databricks or modern data Lakehouse tooling
• Experience building or operating monitoring and alerting systems such as Grafana, Prometheus, or Nagios
• Infrastructure as Code experience with tools such as Terraform or Ansible
• ML or AI applications in an operational or monitoring context
• Experience with Python data visualization libraries

Spire operates a hybrid work model, and this position will require you to work a minimum of three business days per week in the office.

Access to US export-controlled software and/or technology may be required for this role. If needed, Spire will arrange the necessary licenses—this is not something candidates need to have before applying.

Global Perks

🛰️ Name Your Satellite Program (NYSP)
🚀 Launch Attendance
🌴 Generous Time Off Policy
🎓 Education Assistance Program
🥰 Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
📈 Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
👣 Family Leave
💪 Fitness Reimbursement
🧡 Employee Referral Program
🍉 Healthy snacks & beverages in every office

About Spire

We improve life on Earth with data from space.

Spire Global is a space-to-cloud analytics company that owns and operates the largest multi-purpose constellation of satellites. Its proprietary data and algorithms provide the most advanced maritime, aviation, and weather tracking in the world. In addition to its constellation, Spire’s data infrastructure includes a global ground station network and 24/7 operations that provide real-time global coverage of every point on Earth.

Spire is Global and our success draws upon the diverse viewpoints, skills and experiences of our employees. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status.

To help maintain a safe and secure workplace for Spire employees, all candidates who receive a conditional offer will be required to complete a background check. This may include criminal history and employment verification.

Please take a moment to review Spire's Global Data Privacy Notice for Employees, Contractors, Candidates and Visitors, as well as Spire's Privacy Policy.

Kindly be advised that communication regarding your application may come from @spire.com, @recruiting.spire.com, or from Candidate.fyi (our scheduling tool).