Job summary
We are looking for an experienced and skilled Software Engineer to lead our Flight Software team as we approach our next exciting period of growth.
As a key member of our team, the Flight Team Lead will have ownership of our spacecraft flight software product, Flightkit. Flightkit is a cross-platform flight software development kit which helps users rapidly produce modular, reusable flight software through a model-based software engineering (MBSE) approach. As the technical owner of the product, you would be responsible for its ongoing development; and would work with customers, engineers and product management to shape it for success.
The Flight Team Lead will also drive the development of new products within the flight software area. In this role you would provide vital engineering input while working with our commercial team to define, plan and deliver these ambitious new products to our customers.
The role requires a motivational leader to manage a team of engineers: working with them on challenging technical problems and acting as a role model of engineering excellence. As a team lead, you would also help your team to understand the wider commercial context of their work, encouraging them to develop and grow in line with their interests.
We see this role as being full time, although this is negotiable. Ideally, we would like this role to be based in Edinburgh on a hybrid to allow for regular interaction with the teams responsible for Product Management, Customer Delivery and Operations, Finance, People, Sales and Marketing.
What you will do
As a member of the Product Engineering team, reporting to the Head of Product Engineering, your key responsibilities would be:
Technical leadership
- Apply your excellent engineering skills to produce elegant designs and solutions to meet a wide variety of technical challenges in flight software development.
- Communicate these designs and solutions to others, especially the engineers on your team, to help raise the quality of flight software solutions across our business.
- Use your broad experience of software engineering to assist with implementation and troubleshooting where others have run into difficulty.
- Work with your team to build a strong culture of quality and drive-up technical standards. Diligent code reviews, a solid understanding of effective embedded software testing and the use of analysis tools would all form part of your repertoire.
Product ownership
- Take pride in the products you develop and champion their capabilities in conversations with internal and external customers.
- Engage with customers and stakeholders to understand the various requirements on your products. You will be use that understanding to develop your product roadmaps alongside commercial team members.
- Combine your understanding of your customers’ needs with your own creative and innovative approach to generate new ideas and features which will make your products a joy to use.
- As the Flightkit product owner, you would set the standard by which flight software and flight software development processes are judged across our business.
Technical management
- Take an active role in team management processes to help plan work, control development risks and shape the delivery of features.
- Help your team develop self-management skills by maintaining a focus on risk management, simple and effective implementations, and a resistance to overengineering.
- Provide technical solutions to management difficulties through the effective use of CI pipelines and excellent end-to-end documentation of user needs, development tasks and product releases.
Team leadership
- Provide line management and pastoral team leadership to the engineers on your team by supporting career development, holding regular 1:1 meetings and conducting annual reviews.
- Lead by example, demonstrating excellent development practices, while encouraging a constructive dialogue in all technical decisions.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and knowledge sharing within the team, and between the team and others.
- Help maintain a focus on realistic planning and continuous delivery among team members.
Essential skills & experience
We see experience with the following as essential to the job:
- Experience with the full lifecycle of software engineering in a team environment, from requirements capture and design through to development and testing.
- Ability to work with abstract software engineering concepts and design patterns across languages and environments.
- Excellent problem-solving and programming skills using portable C across multiple platforms.
- Experience writing C for software running on at least one embedded platform. Of particular relevance are ARM Cortex-M-based devices.
- Very good understanding of operating system concepts and multi-tasking approaches in a variety of contexts.
- Experience with low-level hardware interactions, including the ability to read and interpret documentation for hardware peripherals, communication protocols and offboard devices.
- A wealth of experience of software systems which you can draw on when diagnosing and debugging issues encountered during development or reported by customers.
- Experience of at least one other programming language besides C. Of particular relevance are Java and Python.
- Experience developing software using Git in a Linux environment, and an understanding of CI/CD principles.
- Demonstrable ability to learn new engineering approaches and technologies quickly and effectively.
Personal skills
We’re especially looking for someone who has:
- A passion for creative problem solving and an appreciation for the balance between pragmatism and elegance which great engineering requires.
- Diligence and good attention to detail in all areas of your work.
- The ability to self-direct, set your own priorities and manage conflicting demands on your time.
- The ability to communicate clearly with colleagues of different technical skill levels, attitudes and backgrounds in both technical and commercial conversations.
- The desire to make a strong contribution to the business, financially but also in terms of team culture and values. You enjoy making an impact and shaping how your organisation works.
- A curiosity towards new skills, new technologies and new ways of working.
Desirable skills & experience
We think that the following skills would definitely be valuable in this role:
- Experience of spacecraft flight software engineering, spacecraft systems engineering or spacecraft operations would all be beneficial, though not essential.
- Familiarity with embedded Linux distributions and tools such as systemd, BusyBox and Yocto. Experience building kernels, working with device tree overlays and producing filesystem images would also be valuable.
- Ability to work directly with embedded hardware and debug issues with interrupt- and DMA-driven device drivers for UART, SPI, I2C and CAN communications.
- Familiarity with FreeRTOS, RTEMS or other resource-constrained real-time operating systems.
- Understanding of software testing approaches and how they can be applied to embedded systems. Of particular relevance are CMock and Unity.
- The ability to automate development processes where necessary using scripts written in bash, Python or other appropriate languages.
- Experience with CI/CD pipeline design, Docker, GitLab and other DevOps technologies would be a definite advantage.
What we can offer you
- A competitive salary in the range of £48k-£65k depending on experience, with regular reviews.
- A fantastic opportunity to join a growing, innovative, employee-centred business pushing boundaries in the space industry.
- Flexible hours and hybrid working, enabling you to create your ideal work life balance.
- 36 days paid holiday per annum.
- 6% employer pension contribution.
- Enhanced Company Sick Pay and Long-Term Sickness cover.
- A Health Cash Plan to cover costs such as dental, physio and optical.
- Life Assurance cover (x4 salary).
- As a member of the Bright Ascension team you would have a stake in the business through our Employee Benefit Trust.
- Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay.
- Opportunities for international travel for exhibitions and trade shows.
- Investment in you and your skill development and the opportunity to attend relevant events and conferences to aid career / skill development.
- Company events and regular activities for social engagement and team building.
- An open, supportive, inclusive environment where you can explore your ideas and make a big difference to the product and business.
About Bright Ascension
We are a fast growing, innovative company changing the way that software is developed in the space industry. With customers across the world, ranging from universities and space agencies, to commercial organisations and start-ups, our core technologies enable our customers to develop and operate space-based systems and services faster, more cost effectively and more reliably.
Innovation is at the heart of what we do and it is our team which drives that innovation; this is reflected in our commitment to employee ownership, which gives all of us a voice, and a stake, in our current and future success. With offices in Dundee, Edinburgh and Bristol we now have more than 50 members of staff and plans to expand significantly over the next 12 months. We are at a very exciting time in our ambitious growth plans and have fantastic opportunities for talented individuals to join our team.
Our Values
We worked together to identify and shape the values that underpin everything we do, our actions, our vision and all things Bright Ascension.
Passion & Innovation
Enjoy what you do and have fun. Be curious and be fearless. Unconventional ideas and passion are the paths to true innovation.
Teamwork & Collaboration
Sharing knowledge helps the team thrive. Start a dialogue and win through teamwork. Success comes through collaboration and support.
Respect & Integrity
Recognise differences and accept opinions. Integrity, respect and high standards create unbreakable trust and builds reputation.
Full job specification Flight Team Lead