Blue Origin

Software Development Engineer III – MAC Control Plane – TeraWave

Blue Origin$207K — $290K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
  • Four or more years of software development experience in wireless networking or communication systems.
  • Proficient in C or C++ for concurrent or timing-sensitive software development in Linux environments.
  • Experience implementing communication protocols and state machines.
  • Familiarity with software that interfaces with hardware or embedded platforms.

Responsibilities

  • Design, implement, and test MAC control-plane software for satellite communication links.
  • Develop systems for TDMA, demand-assigned access, and radio-resource allocation.
  • Implement protocol state machines for link management and reconfiguration.
  • Develop control logic for quality of service and traffic management.
  • Integrate software with hardware and networking data planes.
  • Build tools for simulation and performance analysis under varied operational conditions.
  • Diagnose issues using logs and telemetry data.

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance, along with life insurance options.
  • Paid parental leave and short- and long-term disability coverage.
  • 401(k) plan with company match up to 5%.
  • Stock options available for regular employees.
  • Paid Time Off, including up to four weeks per year and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
Full Job Description

Application close date:

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

As a Software Development Engineer III on the TeraWave Software and Networking Team, you design, implement, and test control-plane software for a custom Media Access Control (MAC) layer supporting Blue Origin's TeraWave network.

The MAC control plane governs radio-resource allocation, link establishment, scheduling, quality of service, link adaptation, and mobility across dynamic satellite-to-ground connections. You contribute to purpose-built MAC protocols and control mechanisms that address the scale, propagation characteristics, mobility, and availability requirements of the TeraWave architecture.

You work closely with senior software engineers and engineers across the PHY, modem, networking, platform, and systems teams to develop a high-throughput, predictable-latency wireless stack designed specifically for space-based communications.

Responsibilities

  • Design, implement, and test MAC control-plane software for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint satellite communication links.

  • Develop components of TDMA, demand-assigned multiple access, admission-control, scheduling, and radio-resource-allocation systems.

  • Implement protocol state machines for link establishment, maintenance, reconfiguration, teardown, fault recovery, and transitions between beams, satellites, and gateways.

  • Develop MAC control logic for QoS enforcement, traffic prioritization, flow control, retransmission, and coordinated link adaptation.

  • Integrate MAC control-plane software with PHY implementations, modem hardware, networking data planes, telemetry systems, and hardware-accelerated MAC functions.

  • Build simulation, test, and performance-analysis tools to validate protocol behavior under mobility, fading, congestion, timing variation, and failure scenarios.

  • Diagnose software, protocol, timing, and system-integration issues using logs, telemetry, packet captures, simulations, and hardware test environments.

  • Deliver MAC control-plane features through design, implementation, code review, hardware integration, system qualification, and operational deployment.

Basic Qualifications

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

  • Four or more years of software-development experience in wireless networking, communication systems, embedded systems, or high-performance networking.

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

  • Experience implementing communication protocols, protocol state machines, resource schedulers, flow-control mechanisms, or QoS systems.

  • Experience developing and debugging software that interfaces with hardware, embedded platforms, networking systems, or communication devices.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience developing MAC or link-layer software for satellite, non-terrestrial, cellular, fixed wireless, or other communication platforms.

  • Knowledge of TDMA, DAMA, OFDMA, radio-resource management, adaptive modulation and coding, ARQ or HARQ, admission control, or QoS scheduling.

  • Experience integrating software with PHY implementations, FPGAs, DSPs, modems, or custom SoCs.

  • Experience with multithreaded, asynchronous, or event-driven software architectures.

  • Experience with simulation and analysis environments such as ns-3, MATLAB, Python, or custom discrete-event simulators.

  • Experience with high-performance packet-processing technologies such as DPDK, VPP, eBPF, or hardware packet-processing engines.

  • Experience developing systems that operate under variable latency, constrained bandwidth, partial connectivity, or rapidly changing network conditions.


Base Pay Range for:

CA applicants is $207,416.00 - $290,381.70 WA applicants is $207,416.00 - $290,381.70

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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