Software Engineer – General (new grad / early career)

About Northwood

Northwood is a modern space infrastructure company focused on making space capabilities broadly accessible through advanced communications systems. The company is creating a worldwide mesh of phased-array ground stations that support dependable, real-time links for satellite missions in areas like national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. With a vertically integrated model, Northwood designs, manufactures, and quickly rolls out scalable systems that support the next generation of space missions.

This role is a strong fit for someone who enjoys tackling difficult technical problems and wants to see their work deployed globally with tangible impact.

Role overview

Northwood is hiring a Software Engineer to help design, build, and improve the global service that connects customers to the network. In this position, you may own important pieces of the stack, from antenna control systems to customer-facing APIs used to reserve network time. The team values engineers who can move across different problem spaces and dig deeply into the highest-priority challenges.

As a full-stack organization, Northwood’s software work spans manufacturing systems through worldwide data transfer. Engineers are encouraged to contribute across several areas while maintaining depth in one or two core specialties.

Areas you may contribute to

• Edge and ground-station systems, including software that controls hardware and interfaces with embedded components and RF modems.
• High-volume data movement, with an emphasis on building efficient pipelines and low-latency, high-throughput distribution across platforms.
• Cloud orchestration and distributed systems, supporting a global network across cloud and on-premise environments.
• Stack architecture and inter-service communication, including protocols that keep services working together smoothly.
• API, database, and front-end development, with work on customer and internal APIs, web interfaces, and scalable back-end systems integrated with ETL pipelines.
• Monitoring and alerting tooling to improve uptime and speed up incident response.
• Telemetry systems that convert operational data into predictive diagnostics and real-time customer updates.
• Infrastructure, security, and deployment pipelines that support reliable global releases without disrupting production.
• Production-line software and test automation for hardware/software bring-up, validation, and collaboration with mechanical, RF, electrical, FPGA, and software teams.
• Simulation and orchestration software for modeling satellite and network designs, validating performance, and coordinating the global antenna network and data plane.

Experience and qualification level

The seniority of the role will depend on the selected candidate’s background. Northwood is open to applicants with a range of experience, including candidates at mid-career through principal level.

Basic qualifications

• 0 to 2 years of professional software development experience. This can include internships, academic projects, extracurricular technical work, or personal projects.
• A completed bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, or a related discipline is preferred. Candidates without a degree are still encouraged to explain their background and the experience they have built in its place.

Preferred profile

• Practical programming experience in one or more of Rust, Go, Haskell, C, or C++.
• Comfort working with languages and tools suited to distributed systems or high-performance computing.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability.
• Clear communication and effective collaboration skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, changing environment.

Compensation and benefits

Pay is set according to role scope, level, location, and market benchmarks. Base salary is decided individually and may vary based on relevant skills, education, experience, and technical depth. In addition to competitive pay, the company may offer long-term incentives such as equity, stock options, cash awards, and discretionary performance bonuses.

Benefits include equity, healthcare coverage, unlimited vacation, retirement savings support, and professional development opportunities.

Additional information

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, you can request support.

Because this work may involve U.S. Government space technology export controls, including ITAR, applicants must be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident, a protected individual under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or otherwise eligible to obtain the required authorization from the U.S. Department of State.

Northwood Space is an equal opportunity employer. Hiring decisions are based on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin or ethnicity, veteran status, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical or mental disability, or any other protected status.