Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

About Northwood : Northwood is on a mission to transform connectivity between earth and space and bring the benefits of space to the masses through innovations in space communications technologies. If you like building quickly and seeing your work deployed globally with real impact, we want you at Northwood. Job Level: The level of this position will be determined based on the qualifications and experience of the successful candidate. We are open to considering candidates of varying experience levels, from mid-career to principal developers. Role: Northwood Space is looking for a Distributed Systems Software Engineer to join our team in our El Segundo office. As a Distributed Systems Software Engineer at Northwood Space, you will be pivotal in designing, implementing, and optimizing data and control plane functionalities within our global ground station network infrastructure. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams and customers to develop innovative solutions that enable reliable, efficient, simple, and available systems. Your expertise in distributed and scalable systems will be essential in achieving our reliability, scalability, and performance goals. The ideal candidate will have a broad technical background, a solid understanding of applicable analytics, and a natural curiosity for producing effective solutions. This person is patient, has excellent time-management skills, and practices an effective communication style. Responsibilities : We are seeking a Distributed Systems Software Engineer to support the design and development of Northwoods' control and data planes - spanning on-prem and cloud environments. In this role you will Ownership of the Distributed Systems responsible for sequencing, provisioning, and configuring all of Northwood's core infrastructure and network. Design and implement Northwood's control and data planes, ensuring seamless integration across on-premises and cloud environments, emphasizing low latency and high throughput data distribution. Work with customers on defining secure and scalable interfaces for Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) and payload data transfer, putting simplicity and extensibility first. Develop, test, deploy, and maintain applications essential to the ground service, including APIs, services for spacecraft communication, and data processing pipelines capable of managing gigabytes of data per second. Support the design and implementation of a comprehensive monitoring solution to ensure the continuous uptime of Northwood's hardware and software systems. Work closely with software, network, and FPGA engineers to design Northwood's hybrid network and software deployments, optimizing performance and scalability. Engage with customers to establish interfaces and infrastructure enabling Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) and Payload downlink at scale. Experience : Candidates should possess some or all of the following qualifications: 5 years of non-internship professional software development experience 3 years of industry experience in architecting and scaling distributed systems in production and/or large-scale software services in the cloud Proficiency in one or more of the following: Rust, Golang, Haskell, C/C++ Open to other languages that are suitable for distributed systems and/or high-performance computing and interested in strong opinions on the right language for various applications Experience building & operating highly reliable distributed systems in a cloud/on-prem environment Experience in Network programming and understanding of the IP protocols Experience with cloud infrastructure - AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Compensation and Benefits: Compensation is determined by role, level, location. and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a base-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, and technical capabilities. In addition to base salary, Northwood Space offers long term incentives such as company stock, stock options, and cash awards, as well as discretionary bonus for performance. Northwood Space benefits include equity, health care, unlimited vacation, retirement savings and professional development.