Senior Flight Software Engineer (Aerospace AI) at Actalent
Tukwila, WA
$74–$87/hrfrom the description
Jul 21, 2026
Tukwila, WA
Jul 23, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual contributor role focused on writing and maintaining flight software for satellite imaging payloads and attitude determination and control subsystems. Day-to-day work spans C/C++ and Python development on embedded Linux platforms, requirements collaboration with systems engineering, board bring-up support, and cross-functional technical leadership. Suited to engineers with a decade or more of mission-critical embedded software experience, ideally with space or ADCS background.
Senior level · 10+ years · Remote · Contract
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 820 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 490–1,450
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The JD requires a Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE 'or equivalent practical experience', so no formal degree is hard-gated.
The role is contract-to-hire (posted by staffing firm Actalent); classified as Contract accordingly.
The posting notes that 'some programs may require US citizenship' but does not hard-gate on a security clearance — no clearance requirement set.
Buildroot and Yocto appear together in both the required and preferred sections; they are listed as alternatives since the JD treats them interchangeably as embedded Linux build systems. Yocto also appears in the preferred section as a standalone mention but represents the same capability.
Hardware interfaces (GPIO, I2C, SPI, CAN, USART, SpaceWire, Cameralink, RS-422, 10G Ethernet, DMA, PCIe) and FreeRTOS/U-Boot all appear under 'Additional Skills & Qualifications' (preferred), so they are marked preferred. Only a representative set of the named interfaces is captured; USART, Cameralink, RS-422, DMA, and 10G Ethernet are omitted as they are closely related to the captured interface skills and the list is illustrative.
Remote candidates are explicitly considered per the posting, so remote is set to true, though the preferred arrangement is hybrid in Tukwila, WA.
Posting is for a contract engagement — the market benchmarks below price full-time roles, so read the comp comparison with that in mind.
Read the full posting
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