Principal Flight Software Virtualization Engineer
Seeking a Principal Flight Software Virtualization Engineer to join our team in Westminster, CO, San Jose, CA, or a U.S. remote location. In this role, you will be the technical leader for our spacecraft flight software virtualization environment, enabling development and testing of Green Hills RTOS-based flight software on emulated x86/RHEL8 platforms.
Responsibilities
• Design, implement, and maintain virtualized environments for spacecraft flight software development and testing using QEMU on x86 architectures running RHEL8
• Develop and optimize processor emulation configurations for Green Hills RTOS, ensuring high-fidelity representation of target spacecraft hardware
• Create software models of spacecraft components and subsystems for integration into all-software spacecraft simulators
• Architect virtualization solutions that support Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for flight software development
• Debug and resolve complex virtualization issues including timing, hardware interface emulation, and RTOS behavior
• Collaborate with flight software engineers to ensure seamless development workflows between virtualized and target hardware environments
• Evaluate emerging virtualization technologies and make recommendations for integration into the development toolchain
• Communicate cross-functionally with software, systems, and test engineers to ensure coherent system design
• Develop and execute unit, integration, and system-level tests on virtualized flight software applications
• Participate in customer-facing design reviews and technical discussions
• Document virtualization architectures, configurations, and best practices
Minimum Requirements
• Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
• BS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related technical discipline (MS preferred). Four additional years of experience may be substituted for a degree. A master's degree may be considered as two additional years of professional experience.
• 15+ years of professional software development experience
• Deep technical expertise in QEMU processor emulation and virtualization technologies
• Demonstrated experience with Green Hills RTOS in virtualized/emulated environments
• Hands-on experience configuring and troubleshooting QEMU for embedded RTOS emulation on x86 platforms
• Strong proficiency with RHEL/Linux systems administration and development environments
• Understanding of spacecraft avionics architectures and real-time systems constraints
• Experience with software compilers, cross-compilation toolchains, and embedded development tools
• Proficiency in C/C++ and scripting languages (Python, Bash)
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with MIL-STD-1553 protocol implementation and emulation
• Knowledge of spacecraft flight software architectures (e.g., cFS, F Prime)
• Familiarity with hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) and software-in-the-loop (SITL) testing methodologies
• Experience with containerization technologies (Docker, Podman) for development environments
• Background in spacecraft simulation or embedded systems simulation
• Understanding of CI/CD tools and practices (Jenkins, GitLab CI, etc.)