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