Senior Wireless Software Engineer - MAC Data Plane - TeraWave

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., 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

• 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., * 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, * Benefits include: 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.