Senior Wireless Software Engineer – MAC Data Plane – TeraWave

About this role

Application close date: Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed. 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!   

Blue Origin is pioneering the future of space-based communications with TeraWave, a revolutionary satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This multi-orbit constellation will consist of optically interconnected satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO), providing enterprise-grade connectivity for critical operations worldwide.

As a Senior Software Engineer on the TeraWave Software and Networking Team, you design and implement the real-time data-path software for a custom Media Access Control (MAC) layer supporting Blue Origin's TeraWave network.

The MAC data plane translates scheduling and resource-allocation decisions into precisely timed radio transmissions and receptions. You build the high-performance software that moves customer traffic between network interfaces, MAC queues, modem hardware, and the physical layer while meeting stringent throughput, latency, timing, and reliability requirements.

You collaborate with MAC control-plane, PHY, modem, FPGA, networking, platform, and systems engineers to deliver a purpose-built wireless stack for high-capacity satellite links operating across dynamic low Earth orbit environments.

Responsibilities • Design and implement real-time MAC data-plane software for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint satellite communication links.

• Translate MAC scheduling and resource-allocation decisions into timed transmit and receive operations executed by modem and PHY hardware.

• Develop packet-processing pipelines and manage queues, buffers, flow control, prioritization, and congestion-handling across the data path.

• Develop data-path support for retransmission, sequence tracking, duplicate detection, loss recovery, and in-order or selective packet delivery.

• Integrate MAC data-plane software with PHY implementations, modem firmware, FPGAs, DMA engines, network interfaces, and custom SoCs.

• Optimize memory movement and packet processing using zero-copy buffers, scatter-gather I/O, batching, lock-free queues, and hardware offload.

• Build telemetry and diagnose timing, synchronization, performance, and integration issues using packet captures, traces, and hardware test environments.

• Deliver MAC data-plane capabilities from architecture and prototyping through hardware integration, performance qualification, and operational deployment.

Basic Qualifications • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field.

• Seven or more years of software-development experience in wireless, embedded, communication systems, or high-performance packet processing.

• Advanced proficiency in C or C++ with concurrent, timing-sensitive software in Linux, real-time Linux, or RTOS environments.

• Experience implementing high-throughput or low-latency data paths, communication protocols, device interfaces, or packet-processing systems.

• Experience integrating and debugging software with embedded hardware, network devices, modems, FPGAs, or communication-system components.

Preferred Qualifications • Experience developing MAC or link-layer data-plane software for satellite, cellular, fixed wireless, cable, Wi-Fi, or other communication systems.

• Knowledge of TDMA, DAMA, OFDMA, framing, segmentation and reassembly, ARQ or HARQ, QoS scheduling, and radio-link operation.

• Experience interfacing with FPGAs, DSPs, DMA engines, modem firmware, network-interface hardware, or custom SoCs.

• Experience with zero-copy packet processing, shared-memory architectures, scatter-gather I/O, lock-free data structures, and cache-aware software design.

• Experience with high-performance networking frameworks such as DPDK, VPP, AF_XDP, io_uring, or similar user-space packet-processing technologies.

• Experience with hardware and software synchronization, precision timing, timestamping, and execution against time-based transmission schedules.

• Experience using protocol analyzers, packet captures, performance profilers, logic analyzers, or hardware-in-the-loop test environments.

Don't have all the listed qualifications? Blue Origin is committed to building a diverse team. If you meet the basic qualifications and are excited about this role, we encourage you to apply.

  Base Pay Range for: CA applicants is $248,830.00 - $348,361.65
WA applicants is $248,830.00 - $348,361.65 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 W

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