Navigation Engineer (Embedded Software)

About Logos Space

Logos Space is building a proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) constellation to deliver resilient, high-performance connectivity to enterprise and government users worldwide. As part of that effort, the Navigation team is designing and building the software and infrastructure for spacecraft timing, astrodynamics, maneuver planning, orbit determination, and related navigation workflows used across flight and ground systems.

Position Summary

The Navigation team at Logos Space is building the onboard software that enables spacecraft navigation capabilities to operate reliably in flight. This role focuses on the design, implementation, integration, and validation of embedded flight software for the spacecraft navigation system, including sensor interfaces, onboard data handling, real-time execution, fault detection and recovery, and interfaces to adjacent spacecraft subsystems.

In this role, you will help build the navigation flight software stack from the ground up, spanning low-level device integration, flight application logic, autonomy, telemetry, command handling, and system-level validation. The work will span embedded C/C++ development, hardware-software integration, real-time data management, flight fault handling, and coordination with astrodynamics, estimation, GNSS, timing, avionics, mission operations, and ground software teams.

Depending on level, you will contribute to or independently own well-scoped portions of the onboard navigation software stack, such as device drivers, sensor data acquisition, real-time message handling, estimator integration, flight mode logic, telemetry and command interfaces, fault detection and recovery, deterministic replay, or hardware-in-the-loop validation infrastructure.

We are looking for engineers who can work well in a fast-paced environment, turn incomplete requirements into practical flight software, and take ownership of software that must operate reliably on orbit.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain embedded flight software for onboard navigation capabilities in modern C/C++.

• Design and implement low-level software interfaces for navigation-related sensors, timing sources, processors, avionics, and spacecraft data buses.

• Develop device drivers, board support interfaces, and hardware abstraction layers for flight and test environments.

• Implement real-time onboard data acquisition, validation, buffering, timestamping, routing, and persistence for navigation-relevant telemetry and measurements.

• Integrate onboard estimation, propagation, timing, and sensor-processing components into a reliable flight software application.

• Design, implement, and validate flight software interfaces to command and telemetry systems, vehicle state management, fault management, guidance and control, mission operations, and ground software.

• Implement FDIR logic for navigation-related sensors, software tasks, data flows, timing behavior, estimator health, and off-nominal spacecraft conditions.

• Build autonomous recovery behavior for degraded navigation modes, sensor dropouts, invalid data, processor resets, timing discontinuities, and interface failures.

• Develop deterministic, resource-conscious software for embedded Linux, RTOS, PREEMPT_RT, or bare-metal flight environments.

• Optimize onboard software for reliability, bounded latency, memory usage, deterministic execution, and graceful degradation under flight constraints.

• Define and implement software data models, message schemas, configuration handling, telemetry products, command interfaces, and onboard data management workflows.

• Support hardware-software integration across common spacecraft interfaces.

• Build simulation, software-in-the-loop, processor-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, and deterministic replay infrastructure to validate onboard navigation behavior before flight.

• Develop unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, fault-injection tests, interface tests, and automated validation pipelines for flight software releases.

• Work closely with astrodynamics, state estimation, GNSS, timing, avionics, flight software, ground software, and mission operations teams to define clean interfaces and integrated workflows.

• Support board bring-up, sensor integration, spacecraft integration and test, environmental test, commissioning, flight-data investigations, and anomaly response as needed.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related STEM field, or equivalent practical experience.

• 5+ years of relevant professional experience developing embedded software, flight software, avionics software, robotics software, spacecraft software, or other high-reliability real-time software. Strong project or graduate research experience may substitute for some professional experience.

• Proficiency in modern C++ for embedded or resource-constrained software development.

• Experience developing software for embedded systems.

• Working knowledge of hardware-software interfaces.

• Working knowledge of software integration with sensors, avionics, timing sources, or spacecraft subsystems.

• Experience building automated tests, simulation tools, hardware-in-the-loop tests, or other validation infrastructure for embedded systems.

• Experience with Linux-based development environments, Git, CMake or similar build systems, and automated testing workflows.

• Working knowledge related to debugging numerical or floating-point issues.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant experience and the ability to independently own technical workstreams.

• Experience developing flight software for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, autonomous systems, robotics, or other mission-critical embedded platforms.

• Experience with spacecraft avionics, flight processors, board bring-up, sensor integration, or flight hardware integration and test.

• Experience implementing FDIR, redundancy management, degraded-mode operation, watchdog handling, or autonomous recovery logic.

• Experience with navigation-related flight software, GNSS receivers, timing systems, etc.

• Experience designing telemetry and command interfaces, onboard data products, configuration systems, and operational software workflows.

• Experience with deterministic replay, fault injection, Monte Carlo testing, software-in-the-loop, processor-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, or mission operations support.

• Experience with high-reliability software practices, requirements traceability, code reviews, static analysis, CI/CD, and release processes for flight or safety-critical systems.

• Familiarity with CCSDS, spacecraft command and telemetry systems, flight data handling, or ground-to-flight software interfaces.

• Ability and willingness to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Security Clearance

Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We value strong fundamentals, sound judgment, and growth potential, and we know great candidates do not always match every item on a job description.

Additional Information

Logos Space is an equal opportunity employer and values creativity, curiosity, and diverse perspectives. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, or any other status protected by applicable law. Employment offers are contingent on the candidate’s ability to access export-controlled information in accordance with U.S. law.