Payload Flight Software Engineer

Job description

Team & Reporting Line: Imaging Operations 

Our Mission 

At constellr, we use thermal intelligence from space to understand what is happening on Earth - where, when and at scale. Our satellite constellation delivers high-resolution land surface temperature data, giving governments, defence organisations, commercial operators and global institutions the intelligence they need to monitor change, assess risk and make better-informed decisions.

From national security and critical infrastructure to agriculture and climate resilience, constellr turns temperature into actionable intelligence for a changing world.

Your Role

As part of the constellr Imaging Operations team, you will build, maintain, and operationalize our onboard payload software — carrying the payload from commissioning through to day-to-day in-orbit operations across the satellite's full lifecycle.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role focused on turning flight software into reliable, operational reality. You will be involved in the design and contribute operational feedback that helps shape it, you will drive the operationalization of in orbit payload software, supporting operations, anomaly solving and commissioning on each new satellite.

You'll collaborate closely across the business — working day-to-day with internal engineering teams, Product Assurance, Project Management, and Operations, as well as external suppliers — and you'll operate at a high interface with the hardware and operations teams, ensuring the software runs reliably on the payload hardware.

Your work will directly influence the reliability, performance, and long-term success of constellr's mission, helping turn mission concepts into robust, flight-ready, operational software systems.

Key responsibilities

• Develop, test, and maintain high-reliability onboard payload software, with a focus on making it operational and flight-ready in compliance with product assurance and safety standards.
• Support the commissioning of the payload and on-orbit activities for each new satellite in the constellation.
• Support in-orbit operations and the operations team, ensuring the onboard software performs reliably in flight.
• Provide operational feedback into software requirements and design across onboard satellite systems, collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Contribute to the evolution of onboard software architecture, with emphasis on in-orbit operational systems and laboratory-based validation environments.
• Support the implementation and validation of Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) strategies to ensure the resilience and autonomy of onboard systems.