Staff Software Engineer (Distributed Systems and Orchestration)

Seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Distributed Systems and Orchestration to serve as the lead engineer on the core scheduling and orchestration subsystems of our Orbital Compute platform. In this role, the successful candidate will own the product and engineering of an MVP for autonomous scheduling across a fleet of compute nodes, combining lessons learned from early proofs of concept, and will scale that MVP from a handful of satellites to larger fleets with data sovereignty as a core product feature. Operating in a fast-paced environment characterized by rapid iteration and significant ambiguity, the successful candidate will build a distributed computing engine with performance, reliability, and security as fundamental building blocks, partnering closely with software, hardware, security, and systems engineers to deliver secure, reliable products. KEY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES Serve as lead engineer for the core scheduling and orchestration subsystems of Compute platform Own the product and engineering of an MVP for autonomous scheduling across a fleet of compute nodes, incorporating lessons learned from early proofs of concept (POCs) Scale the MVP from a handful of satellites to larger fleets, incorporating data sovereignty as a core product feature Design and build a distributed computing engine with performance, reliability, and security as fundamental building blocks Build scheduling, orchestration, and workload-placement logic for edge computing environments, accounting for intermittent or disconnected connectivity, limited resources, and autonomous operation Partner with software, hardware, security, and systems engineers to deliver customer-focused solutions, balancing best practices with time-to-market Provide technical leadership and mentorship, and give and receive productive feedback during collaboration and in design and code reviews Deliver iteratively and quickly in a fast-paced environment with significant ambiguity Perform additional job duties as assigned QUALIFICATIONS Education & Experience Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or another related technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience [8]+ years of professional software development experience, with strong proficiency in a systems language such as Go, Rust, C++, or Java Deep experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems at scale Experience with scheduling, orchestration, or resource-management systems (e.g., Kubernetes, Nomad, or custom orchestrators) Demonstrated experience taking products from MVP or proof of concept to production scale Experience engineering for performance, reliability, and fault tolerance in distributed environments Experience with git distro (such as GitLab) and CI/CD tools Prefer experience treating security and/or data sovereignty as core product requirements Prefer experience with autonomous, self-managing, or self-healing systems Track record of making things happen in ambiguous, fast-moving environments Uses good judgement to problem-solve proactively, positively impacting hard challenges Demonstrated organization skills to meet tight deadlines with high quality results