Senior Software Engineer (Tasking and Planning)

Job description

ROLE HIGHLIGHTS: - Senior Software Engineer (Tasking and Planning) - Location: Valencia - Department: Ground Segment - Reports to: Senior Staff Software Engineer - Employment type: Permanent - Workplace model: Hybrid - Employment is subject to applicable security screening (incl. SUPO, where required) WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS: There are very few positions where you write software that directs a satellite to collect intelligence from space. Where the physics is real, the users are in the room, and the platform is early enough that you shape what it becomes. We are building capability that contributes to the defence of Europe. The standards are high, the problems are hard, and the impact is tangible. If you want to bring great technical skill to a mission that matters, we would like to hear from you. WHO WE ARE ICEYE is the world leader in sovereign intelligence from space. We deliver persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth. ICEYE owns the world's largest and most advanced SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite constellation. To our customers we provide intelligence with unmatched quality, latency and revisit times, in any weather, day or night. To governments who choose to operate their own constellation we provide this proven capability as a sovereign system. ICEYE-built constellations serve customers in defence and intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency management. We enable fast decisions that contribute to a safer future. Founded and headquartered in Finland, ICEYE operates globally with over 1000 employees across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. WHAT YOU WILL BUILD: - Domain Services. Backend services handling task management and sensor planning. Event-driven workers that perform opportunity calculation and synchronise state asynchronously via NATS JetStream. PostgreSQL for persistence. Responsiveness and resilience at the service of the mission. - Customer-facing APIs. Stable, performant interfaces that can evolve but must not break users in doing so. The observability stack and troubleshooting capabilities needed to support our customers in production. - Geospatial Databases. Performant indexes able to resolve geospatial queries against large datasets and ingest new data often. - Tasking and Planning Engines. Orbit propagation, pass prediction, acquisition geometry, sensor configuration parameters, and coverage footprint computation. Applied science mathematics turned into operational capability via Software. - Whatever the future brings. Cross-sensor coordination, satellite autonomy, new collection strategies, and capabilities that will emerge from continuous learning and close collaboration with customers WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR Must haves: - Strong software engineering fundamentals. You design evolvable, resilient, performant systems. You can reason about concurrency and how transactions work. You can make calculated trade-offs between Performance, Consistency and Availability. You are able to choose technologies and design data models that optimise for their data ingestion and access patterns. You understand the difference between “At most once”, “At least once” and how to design systems around those guarantees. - Production experience. You have designed, built, and operated services in production that served real customers and had real economic consequences attached to their availability. You know how to make your systems resilient and observable. - API design experience. You know how to design APIs that enable users, encapsulate unnecessary complexity, and expose opportunity. APIs that remain evolvable but don’t break users who don’t want to adopt the new features. - AI-leaning attitude and experience. You understand that AI is restructuring how knowledge work is done and are open to continuously learning about it. You know how to leverage agentic workflows in multiple stages of your engineering process. Not tentatively, but as a primary tool. You understand their strengths and limitations, and you use them to move faster without sacrificing quality. - Fast learner in technical domains. This role involves orbital mechanics, RF physics, and geospatial data. You don’t need to come in knowing these, but you do need to be the kind of engineer who can pick up a new domain quickly, ask sharp questions, and start contributing before you’ve mastered every detail. - Ability to work from ambiguity. You can take a loosely defined operational need (e.g. “we need users to de-conflict between competing collection plans”) and turn it into concrete engineering work. You ask the right questions, make well-reasoned decisions, and adjust when new information arrives. - Effective communication across domains. You will work alongside people who think in many different ways and work in different contexts. You can listen carefully, ask precise questions, and articulate technical trade-offs in terms that everybody can understand, and adjust to your audience accordingly. Nice to haves: - Orbital mechanics. Experience with TLEs, SGP4 propagation, pass prediction, and acquisition geometry. Familiarity with tools like Skyfield, GMAT, or STK. This is valuable but learnable on the job. - Geospatial engineering. GeoJSON, CZML, WGS84, map projections, coverage polygons, and ground footprints. Experience building systems that process and render geospatial data. - Space, defence, or intelligence sector experience. You have worked in an environment where users depend on the software you build, where the physics constrains what is possible, and where the quality of your work has direct operational consequences. You understand what a tasking workflow looks like from a user perspective. - Frontend engineering. Experience with Next.js, React, and TypeScript, particularly for data-intensive or real-time visualisation applications. Experience with CesiumJS or deck.gl http://deck.gl is a plus. HOW WE WORK: - AI-enhanced engineering. We lean into AI in all stages of our engineering process. We use it to learn new domains, analyse a problem space, design solutions, implement code, troubleshoot issues, and communicate better. We expect engineers to lean into these tools as a core part of how they work, not as an occasional shortcut. The goal is not to replace thinking and ownership but to make us more efficient and compress the time needed between idea and working software. - Rapid iteration with discipline. We prototype quickly, validate ideas, discard what does not work, and invest in what does. We aim for both Speed and Rigor. - Engineers and product, side by side. We don’t work from requirements handed over a wall. Engineers sit with Product Managers and operational stakeholders, understand the mission context first-hand, and collaborate on what to build next. The best ideas come from people who understand both the problem and the technology deeply enough to see possibilities that neither side would find alone. - Deliberate about where we invest. Not every wall needs to be indestructible. Domain boundaries, data models, and event contracts are built carefully because they are expensive to change later. Prototypes, UI experiments, and exploratory features are built to learn, not to last. We take on technical debt intentionally and with eyes open, knowing exactly which shortcuts we are taking, why, and when we will revisit them. APPLICATION PROCESS - TA screening - HM Interview - Use Case/Technical Interview - Cultura + Values Interview WORKING AT ICEYE At ICEYE, you’ll join a diverse and highly engaged team united by the ambition to make the impossible possible. As a global scale-up, we combine speed and ambition with the opportunity to take real ownership from day one. Your growth, wellbeing, and success are a priority, with continuous professional development, training opportunities, and a culture where collaboration is how we win. HOW WE WORK (OUR VALUES) Make the impossible possible: We set ambitious goals and stay calm under pressure. We bring grit, optimism, and ownership when things get hard, and we keep moving until we find a way. - Be curious: Go deep, ask questions, listen carefully, and think critically. Understand the “why” behind decisions. - See the big picture: Stay close to what’s happening across the company so you can make better decisions. Consider how your work affects others. - Drive effective teamwork: Create psychological safety, invite different perspectives, and build inclusive teams. There are no bad questions. - Act as one team: We win together. We match tasks to the right owner and stay agile as priorities shift. - Have fun: What we do matters—and it should be enjoyable. Celebrate progress, take pride in results, and share the wins. BENEFITS Our benefits are designed to support your health and wellbeing, at work and beyond. We keep improving them based on employee feedback, and offerings vary by location. Talent Acquisition will confirm what applies for this role and location during the process. OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION We want ICEYE to be a place where people can be themselves and do great work. Different backgrounds and perspectives make us stronger, which is why we work to create an environment where people feel included, respected, and able to speak up. Whatever your background, we want you to bring your authentic self to the table. We’re committed to fair, inclusive hiring and equal opportunity. Everyone is welcome to apply. If you need any adjustments or support during the recruitment process, tell us—we’ll do our best to help. Apply now to start your ICEYE journey, and help us continue to make the impossible possible together. Read more about ICEYE and working with us at iceye.com http://iceye.com.