Senior Software Engineer , VirtSat Team

Job description

Amazon Leo is an initiative to increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, implement, and operate the VirtSat platform — Leo's virtual satellite environment that enables teams to develop, test, and validate satellite software at scale without requiring physical hardware. VirtSat provides high-fidelity emulation of satellite subsystems on cloud infrastructure, serving 70+ downstream pipelines and enabling continuous integration of embedded flight software.

In this role, you will work across the full VirtSat stack — building cloud services that orchestrate virtual satellite lifecycle, developing QEMU-based hardware emulation plugins, implementing provisioning workflows on AWS, and creating tooling that bridges virtualized environments with real hardware-in-the-loop testing. You will leverage best-in-industry software engineering practices to deliver a platform that is reliable, scalable, and enables satellite software teams to move faster with confidence.

You must be responsive, flexible, and able to succeed within an open, collaborative peer environment working across embedded software, cloud services, and test automation teams.

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

Key Job Responsibilities

- Design and implement cloud services that provision, manage and deploy satellite entities using AWS technologies (EC2 metal instances, Step Functions, DynamoDB, Lambda)

- Develop and maintain provisioning workflows (CreateEntity, PowerOnEntity, ProvisionEntity) that orchestrate the full entity lifecycle — from instance launch through embedded software deployment to test-readiness

- Build and extend QEMU-based hardware emulation plugins that provide high-fidelity satellite subsystem behavior (transporter, HSM, networking, sensors)

- Design automated monitoring, alarming, and self-healing mechanisms to maintain platform availability above 99.5%

- Develop tooling that enables test execution across multiple environments: virtualized satellites, hardware-in-the-loop flatsats, and on-orbit vehicles

- Implement pre-validation, fail-fast patterns, and retry mechanisms that improve provisioning reliability and reduce wasted workflow time

- Drive root cause analysis on platform failures, implement fixes, and build regression prevention into the system

- Mentor junior engineers, lead design reviews, and evangelize engineering excellence practices across the team