Constellation Software Engineer, Infrastructure at WindBorne Systems (Redwood City, CA)
WindBorne Systems· Redwood City, CA· $130k–$180k·
Role details
401(K) · Health Insurance · Dental Insurance · Vision Insurance · Unlimited PTO · Incentive Stock Option Plan · Catered Meals
Summary
Build and maintain robust, 24/7 infrastructure and data pipelines for a global weather balloon constellation. Ensure system reliability, security, and low-latency performance while collaborating with hardware and flight control teams.
Job description
WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather forecasts with a unique proprietary data source: a global constellation of next-generation smart weather balloons targeting the most critical atmospheric data. We design, manufacture, and operate our own balloons, using the data they collect to generate otherwise unattainable weather intelligence.
We're hiring a Constellation Infrastructure Software Engineer to scale and build up the mission critical systems that drive our planetary nervous system. You will be responsible for building up robust infrastructure and applications that can handle business-critical needs around flight operations and automations, data processing, and other operational demands to scale up Atlas around the globe.
We are a small team handling all the software that keeps our entire constellation in the air. Development speed and robustness/security/stability are not mutually exclusive; we value pragmatic decisions, high autonomy, low egos, and a willingness to get your hands muddy in the dirt. This is a 24/7 uptime system and the heartbeat of the company. You will have immediate ownership and the opportunity to proactively drive software solutions with our hardware, operations, and flight control teams.
What you'd own:
- Core infrastructure around manufacturing, launch, flight, internal tools, and data processing.
- Data pipeline integrity — Balloon observations flow from satellite downlinks through processing workers into customer-facing APIs. Ensuring this pipeline is reliable, tamper-evident, and correctly permissioned is as important as making it fast.
- Architecting core infrastructure to support projects requiring clearance.
You'd be a good fit if you:
- Have built and shipped full-stack applications — fluency and comfort working with Ruby on Rails, Postgres, or ability to quickly and pragmatically learn on the job.
- You’ve been responsible for 24/7 uptime systems. You can implement pragmatic best practices forged from real-world, experienced pain of handling such a system. You have the responsibility to handle on-call paired with the lazy engineer’s desire to clean up systems to minimize getting called as much as possible
- Clear understanding of constraints down to the metal and ability. Ability to structure database and service infrastructure to push low-latency software systems to full limit.
- Want to work in-person in Redwood Shores, CA with a small team where your decisions have immediate, visible impact
Note: Parts of this role may involve work on U.S. government contracts or export-controlled systems. This can require eligibility for a U.S. security clearance or to be a U.S. citizen.
BENEFITS
- 401(k)
- Health, Dental, and Vision insurance 100% covered
- Unlimited PTO
- Incentive Stock Option Plan
- Office food and beverages (minimum 2x catered lunches & dinners a week)
SALARY
$130k-$180k** We are considering a range of backgrounds and experience levels for this position and adjust our offers accordingly to be competitive with market rates.
LOCATION
1600 Bridge Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA. In person required.
Why work at WindBorne Systems
- Planetary impact: Every line of code and hardware design directly improves weather prediction, saves lives, and advances climate science.
- Engineering culture: “The Loonie Way” – high agency, obsessive problem‑solving, building from scratch, and iterating relentlessly. The team includes alumni from Project Loon, Stanford, and top aerospace/tech companies windbornesystems.com/careers.
- Hard problems: Autonomous systems in extreme environments, real‑time data pipelines, and cutting‑edge AI.
- Work environment: Based in Redwood Shores, CA; technology is invented, designed, and manufactured in the US. Roles are likely on‑site (many engineering and operations positions specify location). Offices are collaborative and mission‑focused.
- Growth: 38 open roles across engineering, operations, business development, and more – a fast‑scaling startup with multi‑year runway windbornesystems.com/open-roles.