Embedded Systems Jobs

About us

Inversion was founded in 2021 with the mission to build the first affordable, high cadence return capability for the commercial and defense space industries. With launching to space becoming cheap and frequent, comparable options for return must become available to allow for a robust economy in space. We believe in a future where returning from space is as common as launching to space. Inversion is building reentry vehicles faster and cheaper than ever before through a focus on simplicity.

Flight Software Engineer

Right now, the only way to do zero gravity experiments or get flight heritage is to either build your own spacecraft, or make a deal with an ISS resupply mission to hitch a ride to space and back (with some help from astronauts). Getting rid of these limitations for reentry is an important step for human space exploration and development. Whether that be assisting in more up-mass, or being the first in high-cadence down-mass, or lunar/asteroid sample return, Inversion is building a new class of space vehicle.

Flight software is the magic that makes a spacecraft come alive and interfaces people and avionics to make a mission successful. If it doesn't work in space, then we've built and launched a very expensive brick! Nobody likes a brick, everybody likes to fly! At Inversion, you'll have complete ownership of systems from cradle-to-grave.

Responsibilities & Software Team Culture:

• Responsible for the design, development and testing of flight software for our re-entry capsules
• Maintain and optimize current flight software
• Enthusiastic about space exploration
• Genuinely enjoys coding, debugging, and collaborating with others in moderation
• Likes writing code that is easy to understand, test and reuse
• Cares about clear simple code interfaces and naming (especially for command/telemetry)
• Cares about keeping source code and repositories organized
• Good at spotting opportunities to generalize and/or autogenerate code
• Willing to contribute to necessary evils such as ground software, continuous integration, and unit testing in addition to fun flight software
• Willing to do documentation without being asked (especially for command/telemetry)
• Willing to engage in design review with others before coding up a storm
• Can accept constructive criticism in a code review
• Willing to listen, learn, teach and ask for help

Basic Qualifications:

• 3+ years' of experience building, debugging, and supporting operations for complex and semi-autonomous real-time embedded systems
• Spacecraft experience preferred, but open to experience with launch vehicles, satellites, UAVs, deep sea ROVs, etc.
• 2+ years' experience developing hardware drivers using serial protocols such as SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, RS485
• 2+ years' of experience working with microprocessors

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• 5+ years working on an embedded flight software team with a shared code base
• Your code has flown in space!
• Experience developing with microprocessors (preferably with FreeRTOS on STM32 MCUs)
• Experience developing for cubesats using CAN interfaces and Cubesat Space Protocol
• Experience developing embedded real-time Linux applications
• Experience developing HDL for FPGAs that interface with embedded real-time Linux applications
• Experience collaborating with GNC engineers and helping to integrate their algorithms (bonus points if you’ve helped develop the internals too)
• Experience supporting mission operations to debug and patch flight software on orbit
• Experience working with closed loop HITL (Hardware In The Loop) test setups
• Experience developing HITL hardware emulators in addition to flight software
• Experience doing HDL development for FPGAs
• Experience doing Linux Kernel development using Petalinux or something similar
• Experience using and debugging ground software
• Comfortable with basic ESD and cleanroom precautions
• Comfortable wiring up electronics and debugging with a logic analyzer
• Comfortable using git for version control and code review
• Experience with CI (Continuous Integration) to automate build artifacts and testing in Github or Gitlab

Additional Requirements:

Position may require extended work hours and weekend work.

ITAR Compliance:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.