Ground and Control Services, Software Engineering Manager

Seattle, WA · Remote · full time · Senior

$165,000 – $205,000

Listed on BlackSky’s own careers site. You apply with them directly — we never stand between you and the employer.

What this role is

This is a management role leading the software engineering team that builds autonomous systems controlling BlackSky's satellite constellation, including tasking, telemetry, and ground station communications. The ideal candidate is a technical people manager with deep experience in distributed systems and cloud infrastructure who can balance rapid iteration with operational reliability in a mission-critical environment.

Our summary, not BlackSky’s wording. The full posting is on their site.

Skills this role names

What they ask for

Required

Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience
8+ years professional software engineering experience
2+ years leading engineering teams as people manager or technical lead
Strong technical background in Go, Python, or C++
Experience developing and deploying microservices in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) or on-premises Kubernetes
Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, version control, and operational best practices
Ability to manage priorities and coordinate across teams in fast-paced environments
Excellent communication and collaboration skills

Nice to have

Master's degree in relevant technical field
10+ years professional engineering experience
Experience managing teams working with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Ansible) or container orchestration (Kubernetes, Nomad)
Knowledge of system safety, fault tolerance, redundancy, and recovery strategies
Background in satellite operations, ground stations, or aerospace domains
Experience aligning engineering with both commercial SLAs and program-specific requirements