Software Development Engineer, GNC Software, Amazon Leo

Amazon Leo is Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite network. Our mission is to deliver fast, reliable internet connectivity to customers beyond the reach of existing networks. From individual households to schools, hospitals, businesses, and government agencies, Amazon Leo will serve people and organizations operating in locations without reliable connectivity.

Amazon Leo is an ambitious project that depends on entirely new satellite designs along with all of the ground capabilities needed to operate a large constellation and provide high performance service to end users. Because the constellation will have several thousand satellites serving millions of customers, systems are being designed to be highly autonomous, self-adaptable to the environment, and capable of recovery in the event of problems. The great majority of new equipment and software is being developed and built in-house by our engineering and manufacturing teams.

Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) designs the constellation for good coverage and space safety, and develops the systems that control and maneuver each satellite as they ascend from injection to operational orbits, merge into the constellation flow and station keep relative to neighbors. Every spacecraft is ready and able to maneuver at any time to avoid other satellites or space debris if a close pass threatens.

The navigation system provides precise positioning in real-time and supports forecasting future orbital state, taking into account planned maneuvers and other effects. Guidance, Navigation, and Control also provides cueing to direct the communications systems on the satellite that require accurate pointing in order to achieve high performance.

Export Control Requirement: Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Key job responsibilities

As a Guidance, Navigation, and Control software engineer, you will develop real-time, embedded software that flies the satellite; ground-based applications that predict orbital state, monitor for potential collisions, and optimize maneuvers; high fidelity modeling and simulation software; and all sorts of infrastructure needed to develop and operate the system. Because GNC is the heart of the satellite flight system, you will frequently be pulled in to help with a broad spectrum of problems standing in the way of satellite integration and test, manufacturing, and even flight operations.

A day in the life

This is an opportunity to play a significant role in the design of an entirely new satellite system with challenging performance requirements. The large, integrated constellation brings opportunities for advanced capabilities that need investigation and development. Scale also puts emphasis on engineering excellence so our tools and methods, from conceptualization through manufacturing and all phases of test, will be state of the art as will the satellite and supporting infrastructure on the ground. You will split time working well defined SW projects needed by the program on a schedule, prototyping design concepts that may or may not make it to production, participating in component and satellite level testing, and helping with flight operations.

About the team

Our team has experience with various satellite systems and many other flight vehicles. We have bench strength in our mission, the core Guidance, Navigation, and Control disciplines, and software development for flight and other systems. We design, prototype, test, iterate and learn together. Because GNC is central to safe flight, we tend to drive Concepts of Operation and many system level analyses. You will find that Amazon Leo"s mission is compelling, so our program is staffed with some of the top engineers in the industry. Our daily collaboration with other teams on the program brings constant opportunity for discovery, learning, and growth.