Software Engineer, Platform

📋 Job Overview

Northwood is a modern space infrastructure company bringing the benefits of space to the masses through advanced communications technology. We are building a global network of phased array ground stations that enable real-time, reliable communication for satellite missions such as national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. With a vertically integrated approach, Northwood designs, builds, and rapidly deploys scalable systems that power the next generation of space missions. If you like solving complex challenges and seeing your work deployed around the world with real impact, Northwood is the place to do it.

🏢 About Northwood

Northwood engineers and operators run hardware and software across a global network of antenna ground stations and the cloud services behind them. No one sells a platform for running a network like this at scale, so Northwood builds its own.

🎯 The Role

Platform Engineering builds the software that takes Northwood products from first prototype to full operation. That covers how code is built, tested, and released, how every site and service is monitored, and how hardware in remote locations is brought online, updated, and kept healthy. Every one of these problems has to work across every site, service, and customer at once.

As an early-career Software Engineer on the Platform team, you'll ship to real production systems from your first weeks, with close mentorship, and take on more ownership as you show you're ready. You don't need to know every part of the stack today. You need to learn fast, reason clearly through problems you haven't seen before, and care a lot about what you build.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Build the CI and release pipelines that take code from commit to production, in the cloud and at ground stations around the world.
• Build simulated ground stations and lab test benches running real hardware, so every release is tested against realistic conditions before it reaches a live site.
• Automate how new sites are brought online, configured, and updated, in remote locations with few or no people on site.
• Build the monitoring, logging, and alerting that show the health of every service and site.
• Build the backend services and web interfaces engineers and operators use every day to create, ship, and run software.
• Define the cloud and site infrastructure the platform runs on as code.

📌 Required Qualifications

• 0 to 2 years of professional software experience. It doesn't have to be a full-time role. Internships, research, open source, and projects outside the classroom all count, so tell us about them.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, math, or a related field. This is a soft requirement: if you didn't pursue a degree, tell us what you did instead.
• Has written real software in at least one general-purpose language (such as Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or C++) beyond required coursework.
• Has built and shipped something other people used or relied on.
• Has solved a hard technical problem largely on their own, such as debugging a non-obvious failure or designing a system from scratch.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Proficiency in one or more languages (such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript), with opinions about which one fits which job.
• Has built a backend API and a frontend that uses it (such as a React app on a REST API).
• Exposure to CI pipelines (such as GitHub Actions or GitLab CI), containers (such as Docker), a cloud platform (such as AWS), or infrastructure as code (such as Terraform or CloudFormation).
• Day-to-day comfort with Linux and the command line, or coursework and projects in operating systems, networking, or distributed systems.
• Built a tool, script, or library other developers used.
• Projects involving hardware, embedded systems, RF, robotics, or space, such as a CubeSat, rocketry, or robotics team.
• Track record of going past what was asked, such as side projects, competitions, research, or things built because you wanted to.
• Comfort with AI coding tools (such as Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor).

🎁 Benefits

Compensation: $123K – $140K

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined