Virtual Protocol Engineer Jobs in Colorado (NOW HIRING)

Anduril's Space team is dedicated to expanding our AI-powered capabilities into the final frontier, enhancing Space Domain Awareness, Space Control, and Command and Control for U.S. military and allied partners. We're developing fully integrated hardware and software systems, including Lattice for Space Missions and modular payloads, to address growing threats in space and ensure our Guardians maintain a decisive advantage in this contested warfighting domain.
The Lattice for Space C2 (LSC2) team owns the ground command-and-control platform - the services that interface directly with radios, ground-station networks, and flight computers to execute satellite missions in production.

As a Software Engineer on Space Ground Software, you will build, deploy, and operate the command-and-control software that flies real space missions - the ground-side services that plan missions, command spacecraft, ingest and serve telemetry, drive antennas and ground stations, and keep deployed satellite systems running in production. You will develop modular capabilities on top of the Anduril Lattice software platform to support DoD and IC customers across the space domain, architecting Space C2 services, infrastructure, algorithms, and integrations that span both orbital and ground systems. The Anduril Space C2 capability development will involve integration with legacy systems that have been part of our nation's critical defense for decades, as well as new space systems being added to the set of orbital and ground-based capabilities.
We work with mission partners and operators to deploy reliable and robust capabilities on operationally-relevant fielding timelines to meet complex challenges across the DOD and IC.

• Own software solutions end-to-end - from API/proto design through deployment to production operation - and be on the hook when they run in front of customers
• Build and operate backend services across the Space C2 stack (Go, gRPC/Protobuf): command & telemetry, mission and plan management, ground-station and antenna brokering, space-to-ground protocol stacks, file transfer, and access control
• Write and evolve protobuf API contracts, coordinating interface changes across teams
• Deploy and run services in secure government cloud on containers/Kubernetes, and participate in on-call and incident response for live missions
• Integrate with spacecraft and ground infrastructure - software-defined radios, antenna pointing, ground-station providers, space-to-ground data links, and astrodynamics (orbit propagation, maneuver planning, satellite state)
• Build and run software-in-the-loop (SITL) simulation to validate end-to-end operations before live passes
• Integrate with legacy systems to unlock 21st-century capabilities
• Review your teammates' code and uphold a high quality bar - rigorous, high-volume code review is a core part of the job on this team
• Collaborate across multiple teams to plan, build, and test complex functionality
• Create and analyze metrics for debugging and monitoring; triage issues, root cause failures, and coordinate next-steps
• Partner with end-users to turn needs into features while balancing user experience with engineering constraints

• Strong engineering background from industry or school, ideally in areas/fields such as Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or Physics
• 4+ years building backend and distributed systems, primarily in a systems language (Go, Rust, or C++), with networked services using gRPC/Protobuf - and comfortable working primarily in Go
• Experience shipping and operating production services on containers/Kubernetes, with real CI/CD and cloud deployment - you've run what you've built, not just written it
• Experience integrating software with physical systems - hardware control, embedded interfaces, protocol implementation, or real-time data pipelines
• Ability to quickly understand and navigate complex systems and detailed requirements, and to solve complex technical problems with little oversight
• Strong collaboration and code-review discipline, with clear communication and good documentation/training habits
• A desire to work on critical software that has a real-world impact
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Top Secret SCI security clearance

• Space/aerospace domain experience: telemetry & commanding, ground stations and antenna systems, RF/waveform/link-layer, orbital mechanics, or GNC
• Experience with space C2 software systems and spacecraft operations
• Experience with CCSDS protocols (TM/TC framing, CFDP, virtual channels) or similar layered communication standards
• Experience with binary protocol parsing - deserializing wire formats, implementing framing layers, or working with annotation-driven codecs
• Previous exposure to software-defined radios, RF modems, or satellite communication equipment
• Experience with deployment and infrastructure-as-code tooling such as Kubernetes, FluxCD, Helm, Terraform, or Nix, and government cloud (e.g., Azure Gov)
• Experience operating live systems (on-call, incident response) and building observability/metrics
• Nix-based build systems or reproducible/hermetic build toolchains
• Familiarity with time systems (UTC, TAI, GPS time) and coordinate frames (ECI, ECEF, ENU)
• Previous exposure to space-related simulation and hardware-in-the-loop integration
• Comfort working in secure/compliance-constrained (CUI, TS, gov) environments