Payload Processing Software Engineer, Project Sunrise

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! This role is part of Advanced Concepts and Enterprise Engineering (ACE), supporting Blue Origin’s mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. The team fosters innovation and drives engineering workflows of the future, shared solutions and standards, simplicity and lower costs, and manufacturable design. Join Blue Origin as we build infrastructure in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re developing a satellite constellation of orbital data centers, Sunrise, designed to transform how compute infrastructure is deployed and leveraged. Our team is developing next-generation spacecraft that push the boundaries of performance and capability in orbit. We are seeking an experienced software engineer to own the payload processing runtime, the engine that drives our in-space computing capabilities. You will be responsible for integrating and optimizing modern parallel computing frameworks and solving one of the hardest software challenges in this domain: maintaining state and ensuring fault tolerance for jobs across intermittent satellite contact windows. If you are an expert in high-performance computing and are excited to build a resilient, computational platform, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Own the architecture and implementation of the on-board payload processing runtime for diverse, high-performance computational workloads.
• Integrate, configure, and optimize accelerator compute frameworks and libraries, including defining workload optimization strategies for our orbital hardware.
• Design and write the core system code from scratch for robust workload checkpointing and state persistence to handle planned and unplanned interruptions in connectivity.
• Define the API contract for job submission and results delivery, collaborating with the compute orchestration team to establish schemas, latency SLAs, and error-handling semantics.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive performance benchmark suite on reference hardware to characterize throughput, latency, and power tradeoffs for various representative workloads.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 6+ years of experience in high-performance computing (HPC), distributed systems engineering, or accelerator-focused software development.
• Direct, hands-on experience deploying and optimizing demanding, data-intensive applications on large-scale accelerated computing systems.
• Strong understanding of accelerator architecture (e.g., GPUs), utilization metrics, memory bandwidth management, and parallel programming models.
• Solid grasp of distributed systems fundamentals, particularly fault tolerance, consensus, and state management in environments with intermittent connectivity.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant discipline.
• 10+ years of relevant experience.
• Deep experience with low-level performance tuning and optimization of accelerator kernels.
• Proven ability to design and build complex, stateful, and resilient distributed systems.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies in a production environment.
• Passion for and understanding of AI and Machine Learning applications in engineering, with a demonstrated ability to learn and integrate new technologies.

Base Pay Range for: CO applicants is $181,626.00 - $254,275.35 WA applicants is $197,529.00 - $276,539.55 Other site ranges may differ

Culture Statement

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin 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.

Background Check Required for all positions:

• Blue’s Standard Background Check Required for Certain Job Profiles: Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Drivers who operate Commercial Motor Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or combination of power unit and trailer that meets or exceeds 10,001 lbs. and/or transports placardable amounts of hazardous materials by ground in any vehicle on a public road while in commerce, may be subject to additional Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations including: Driver Qualification Files, Medical Certification (obtained before onboarding), Road Test, Hours of Service, Drug and Alcohol Testing, vehicle inspection requirements, CDL requirements (if applicable) and hazardous materials transportation/shipping training.
• Required for certain Job Profiles: Ability to obtain and maintain Merchant Mariner Credential, which includes pre-employment and random drug testing as well as DOT physical

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
• Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion.
• Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation. Please check with your recruiter for more details.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Blue Origin is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to attracting, retaining, and developing a highly qualified and dedicated work force. Blue Origin hires and promotes people on the basis of their qualifications, performance, and abilities. We support the establishment and maintenance of a workplace that fosters trust, equality, and teamwork. We provide all qualified applicants for employment and employees with equal opportunities for hire, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, and/or local law. Blue Origin will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Washington Fair Chance Act, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance in Hiring Ordinance, and other applicable laws. For more information on “Know Your Rights,” please see here.

We’re committed to building the road to space so our children can build the future. We are a mission-driven company focused on ideas and innovation, and encourage fresh perspectives from bold voices.

Affirmative Action and Disability Accommodation Applicants

Applicants wishing to receive information on Blue Origin’s Aff… (content omitted for brevity)

Thank you for your interest in working at Blue Origin!

Blue Origin was founded with a vision to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes in the need to enable humanity to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue Origin believes it has an important role in building a road to space and lowering the cost of getting there. At Blue Origin, we’re working on this today by developing fully reusable launch vehicles and systems that are safe, reliable and affordable. Every launch vehicle is designed for human spaceflight from the beginning and able to ferry payloads to space.