Blue Origin

Senior Wireless Software Engineer – MAC Data Plane – TeraWave

Blue Origin$248K — $348K *
Telecommunications & Hardware
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
  • 7+ years of experience in software development for wireless or embedded communication systems.
  • Proficient in C or C++, especially for timing-sensitive applications on Linux or RTOS.
  • Experience with high-throughput or low-latency communication protocols and data paths.
  • Proficient in embedding software debugging with hardware components like modems and FPGAs.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement MAC data-plane software for satellite communication links.
  • Translate scheduling decisions into timed operations for modem and PHY hardware.
  • Develop packet-processing pipelines and manage data flow across the network.
  • Implement functionality for packet retransmission, sequencing, and loss recovery.
  • Integrate MAC software with hardware components for optimized performance.
  • Optimize memory processing with advanced data handling techniques.
  • Build telemetry systems to diagnose and troubleshoot performance issues.

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance, including basic and supplemental life insurance.
  • Paid parental leave and short/long-term disability support.
  • 401(k) plan with a 5% company match and an Education Support Program.
  • Stock options offered to all employees working at least 20 hours/week.
  • Up to four weeks of paid time off, with additional company-paid holidays.
Full Job Description

Application close date:

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

Blue Origin is pioneering the future of space-based communications with TeraWave, a revolutionary satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This multi-orbit constellation will consist of optically interconnected satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO), providing enterprise-grade connectivity for critical operations worldwide.

As a Senior Software Engineer on the TeraWave Software and Networking Team, you design and implement the real-time data-path software for a custom Media Access Control (MAC) layer supporting Blue Origin's TeraWave network.

The MAC data plane translates scheduling and resource-allocation decisions into precisely timed radio transmissions and receptions. You build the high-performance software that moves customer traffic between network interfaces, MAC queues, modem hardware, and the physical layer while meeting stringent throughput, latency, timing, and reliability requirements.

You collaborate with MAC control-plane, PHY, modem, FPGA, networking, platform, and systems engineers to deliver a purpose-built wireless stack for high-capacity satellite links operating across dynamic low Earth orbit environments.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement real-time MAC data-plane software for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint satellite communication links.

  • Translate MAC scheduling and resource-allocation decisions into timed transmit and receive operations executed by modem and PHY hardware.

  • Develop packet-processing pipelines and manage queues, buffers, flow control, prioritization, and congestion-handling across the data path.

  • Develop data-path support for retransmission, sequence tracking, duplicate detection, loss recovery, and in-order or selective packet delivery.

  • Integrate MAC data-plane software with PHY implementations, modem firmware, FPGAs, DMA engines, network interfaces, and custom SoCs.

  • Optimize memory movement and packet processing using zero-copy buffers, scatter-gather I/O, batching, lock-free queues, and hardware offload.

  • Build telemetry and diagnose timing, synchronization, performance, and integration issues using packet captures, traces, and hardware test environments.

  • Deliver MAC data-plane capabilities from architecture and prototyping through hardware integration, performance qualification, and operational deployment.

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field.

  • Seven or more years of software-development experience in wireless, embedded, communication systems, or high-performance packet processing.

  • Advanced proficiency in C or C++ with concurrent, timing-sensitive software in Linux, real-time Linux, or RTOS environments.

  • Experience implementing high-throughput or low-latency data paths, communication protocols, device interfaces, or packet-processing systems.

  • Experience integrating and debugging software with embedded hardware, network devices, modems, FPGAs, or communication-system components.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience developing MAC or link-layer data-plane software for satellite, cellular, fixed wireless, cable, Wi-Fi, or other communication systems.

  • Knowledge of TDMA, DAMA, OFDMA, framing, segmentation and reassembly, ARQ or HARQ, QoS scheduling, and radio-link operation.

  • Experience interfacing with FPGAs, DSPs, DMA engines, modem firmware, network-interface hardware, or custom SoCs.

  • Experience with zero-copy packet processing, shared-memory architectures, scatter-gather I/O, lock-free data structures, and cache-aware software design.

  • Experience with high-performance networking frameworks such as DPDK, VPP, AF_XDP, io_uring, or similar user-space packet-processing technologies.

  • Experience with hardware and software synchronization, precision timing, timestamping, and execution against time-based transmission schedules.

  • Experience using protocol analyzers, packet captures, performance profilers, logic analyzers, or hardware-in-the-loop test environments.

Don't have all the listed qualifications? Blue Origin is committed to building a diverse team. If you meet the basic qualifications and are excited about this role, we encourage you to apply.


Base Pay Range for:

CA applicants is $248,830.00 - $348,361.65 WA applicants is $248,830.00 - $348,361.65

Other site ranges may differ


Benefits

  • Benefits include:  Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
  • Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
  • Paid Time Off:  Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
  • Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion. Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation. Please check with your recruiter for more details.

About Blue Origin

Blue Origin is an aerospace company that develops rockets and spacecraft for commercial and government customers. The company's products include the New Shepard suborbital vehicle and the New Glenn orbital rocket. Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos and is headquartered in Kent, Washington.
Learn more about Blue Origin
Size
3,000 employees
Industry
Founded
2000

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