Senior Software Engineer - Flightaware Flight Tracking (onsite)

Software Engineer

FlightAware is looking for a software engineer passionate about aviation and distributed systems to join our core flight tracking crew. In this backend-focused role, you will work alongside fellow engineers on our critical flight tracking systems to ensure FlightAware is always producing the highest quality and most accurate flight and surface tracking data in the industry. The data produced by our core flight tracking team underpins nearly every product offered by FlightAware, so your work will have a high impact on the entire FlightAware product suite. As a member of our team, you will build scalable, fault-tolerant software systems and solve meaningful, challenging problems.

FlightAware has built the world's leading aviation software platform, processing over 180+ million incoming messages an hour from over 34,000 individual data feeds—5 terabytes a day and growing! We provide the best, most complete, and most accurate real-time flight-tracking service and are proud to have built a wide variety of successful products on this foundation that have become central to the aviation industry at large.

Regardless of role, we expect excellent interpersonal and communication skills across all hires at FlightAware. We look for candidates who will thrive here, meaning they demonstrate clear communication, embrace open feedback, trust their colleagues, and are driven to execute, deliver, and complete projects independently and efficiently.

What you will do:

• Write high-quality, well-tested code for our systems to meet the needs of our customers—some of the largest airlines and airports in the world, along with those in countless other industries.
• Help articulate and deliver a long-term vision for maintaining and scaling our backend systems and the teams running them.
• Maintain and improve the company's core flight tracking systems.
• Build new services to support new products, and revolutionize existing ones, using Rust & Python.
• Work with other engineers, product owners, and senior leadership to transform our product and technical vision into a tangible roadmap every quarter.
• Interact with customers in the industry to understand how our systems can better serve them.
• In addition, you could work on any of the following:
• Dig deep into our data fusion and interpretation algorithms to improve matching and information synthesis of live position and flightplan feeds.
• Detect data quality issues, identify their root causes, develop fixes, and design auditing to prevent future issues.
• Design, build, and maintain ETL pipelines to support data and analytical needs.
• Help design new distributed systems from scratch and bring them to production.

What you will learn:

• You will develop your technical acumen by working with cutting edge, in-demand technologies including Rust, Python, Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, and more.
• You will gain experience working with real-time, distributed systems which process enormous volumes of data.
• You will become adept at solving aviation domain challenges & data problems to decipher what is true and accurate in order to produce our "single source of truth" data stream which powers FlightAware products.
• You will learn how to expand your impact as an engineer through activities such as mentoring junior engineers and becoming a go-to person in an area of expertise.
• You will work in a supportive environment with a team of people who treat each other with respect, and care about building and delivering high-quality software.

Qualifications you must have:

• Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) and minimum 5 years prior relevant experience or an Advanced Degree in a related field and minimum 3 years of experience
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship now or in the future. RTX will not offer sponsorship for this position.
• Professional experience building backend systems as a software engineer using languages and technologies such as Rust, Go, Python, Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, or similar; containerization & orchestration with Docker; strong practical knowledge of the Linux command line.

Qualifications we prefer:

• Experience writing well-documented and highly tested code.
• Experience working with distributed systems or real-time APIs with demanding reliability and SLA requirements.
• Experience with queueing frameworks (RabbitMQ, Kafka, etc.).
• Passionate about general developer tooling and productivity.
• Experience with Nix for build and dependency management.
• Knowledge of cloud native tools like Flux, Open Telemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Terraform, or similar.
• Knowledge of cybersecurity best practices and secure software design.
• A track record of acquiring new skills, proactively solving problems, applying new technology in the workplace and openness to new approaches.
• Excited about improving the world's foremost flight tracking and aviation platform.
• You are a private pilot, or you are looking to pursue your private pilot license.

What We Offer:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Three weeks of vacation for newly hired employees
• Generous 401(k) plan that includes employer matching funds and separate employer retirement contribution, including a Lifetime Income Strategy option
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Student Loan Repayment Program
• Life insurance and disability coverage
• Optional coverages you can buy pet insurance, home and auto insurance, additional life and accident insurance, critical illness insurance, group legal, ID theft protection
• Birth, adoption, parental leave benefits
• Ovia Health, fertility, and family planning
• Adoption Assistance
• Autism Benefit
• Employee Assistance Plan, including up to 10 free counseling sessions
• Healthy You Incentives, wellness rewards program
• Doctor on Demand, virtual doctor visits
• Bright Horizons, child and elder care services
• Teladoc Medical Experts, second opinion program
• And more!