Senior Flight Software Engineer, Arc Vehicle Verified today

About Inversion

Inversion builds advanced reentry systems to deliver next-generation capabilities from space. The mission is to make Earth radically more accessible by turning Low-Earth Orbit into an on-demand logistics domain. Spacecraft are designed to deliver payloads anywhere on Earth in under an hour, operating through extreme reentry conditions and landing with high precision. The company works with partners including the U.S. Space Force and NASA.

What You'll Do

As a Senior Flight Software Engineer, you will report directly to the Engineering Manager of Arc Vehicle Software. You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and verifying the core flight software that controls the Arc hypersonic reentry vehicle. You will own safety-critical software modules end-to-end, including vehicle state machines, flight autonomy, and fault-management logic.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, test, and deploy high-reliability, real-time flight software.
• Design and implement safety-critical state machines, autonomous flight sequencing, and fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) algorithms.
• Integrate and optimize GNC flight software modules from the Reentry and Accurate Landing teams into the main C++ software loop.
• Perform low-level driver development and board bring-up on flight hardware, debugging hardware-software interfaces using logic analyzers and oscilloscopes.
• Lead the development and execution of Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test suites to validate software performance and timing margins.
• Participate in rigorous code reviews, establish technical coding standards, and mentor junior embedded software developers.
• Collaborate with systems and avionics engineers to define interface control documents (ICDs), telemetry packets, and communication protocols (CAN, Ethernet, Serial).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent technical experience.
• Typically 5+ years of professional experience developing embedded, real-time, or safety-critical software.
• Strong proficiency in systems programming languages (C / C++ / Rust) in a Linux-based development environment.
• Solid understanding of embedded Linux, deterministic software design, memory management, and multi-threaded architectures.
• Hands-on experience writing software that directly interfaces with physical hardware via communication protocols (such as CAN, Ethernet, SPI, I2C, or RS-422).
• Demonstrated excellent verbal and written communication skills with experience presenting technical software designs.
• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience developing flight software for spacecraft, launch vehicles, or safety-critical autonomous aerospace platforms.
• Familiarity with modern software development best practices, including Git, unit-testing frameworks, static analysis, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with physical systems modeling, sensor data processing, or GNC algorithms.
• Prior experience in a fast-paced aerospace startup or small, high-ownership team.

Location and Compensation

This position requires in-office presence at Inversion's headquarters in Playa Vista, California. The California annual base salary is $139,000 - $201,000. Pay is determined on a case-by-case basis based on role, level, location, market data, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, and internal equity.

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.