Site Reliability Engineer, Xona Space Systems
$170-197k
+ Offers Equity
Office located in Burlingame, CA
Satellite navigation system
Open for applications
Satellite navigation system
101-200 employees
Open for applications
$170-197k
+ Offers Equity
Office located in Burlingame, CA
101-200 employees
Company mission
To remove the boundaries from modern technologies by providing precise and protected navigation services anywhere on Earth.
Role
Who you are
- Cloud Operations: 4+ years of experience managing production-grade environments in AWS, GCP, or Azure
- Orchestration: Expert-level proficiency with Kubernetes (EKS), including networking, ingress controllers, and service mesh management
- Automation: Strong experience with configuration management and IaC (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, Helm)
- Data Systems: Deep knowledge of SQL and NoSQL database administration, focusing on replication, backup, and disaster recovery
- Programming: Proficiency in Python and C++ for developing internal tooling and automating complex operational workflows
- Systems Internals: Strong understanding of Linux networking, storage, and kernel tuning
Desirable
- Prior experience in Aerospace, Defense, or high-reliability sectors
- Familiarity with CCSDS standards or satellite ground station software
- Experience with secure, air-gapped, or hybrid-cloud deployments
What the job involves
- We are seeking a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to architect and manage the critical ground infrastructure for our satellite constellation. This role is responsible for the "last mile" of mission success: ensuring that the software controlling our orbital assets is highly available, scalable, and seamlessly integrated with Mission Operations
- You will own the lifecycle of our production environments, from automating deployments via Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to managing the core data systems that track constellation health and user activity
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Design and maintain scalable, repeatable cloud infrastructure (AWS) using tools like Terraform or CloudFormation
- Mission Ops Integration: Build and optimize the interfaces between core data management systems and Mission Operations software, ensuring reliable telemetry and command flows
- User & Data Management: Architect and maintain high-availability identity providers (IdP) and distributed databases to support global user access and real-time data processing
- Automated Deployment Pipelines: Create and manage robust CI/CD pipelines to deploy containerized applications into production with a focus on zero-downtime and rollback capabilities
- Observability & Reliability: Implement comprehensive monitoring, alerting, and logging (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK) to ensure 99.99% uptime for ground segment services
- Scalability Engineering: Perform capacity planning and performance tuning to handle the high-throughput data requirements of a growing satellite constellation
Our take
Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) is crucial for autonomy, tying vehicles to their environment and making autonomous operation possible. Xona Space Systems is developing a network of small satellites to provide high-precision PNT services, essential for modern technologies like autonomous vehicles and robotics.
The company has set its sites on pushing the limits of modern technology, setting itself apart in its space with its PULSAR service, which offers superior accuracy, availability, and security compared to traditional GPS. This makes it crucial for the widespread adoption of autonomous systems in unstructured environments.
The company has secured $270 million to date, its 2026 round being used to accelerate the deployment of its low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Its partnerships with the US Space Force and industry leaders highlight the growing confidence in its innovative approach, while future plans include the commercialisation of PULSAR, which will enable autonomous systems to operate effectively anywhere.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 10 rounds)
Mar 2026
$170m
SERIES C
Jun 2025
$92m
SERIES B
Total funding: $336.3m
Company HQ
Baywood Park, CA
Leadership
Brian Manning
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously worked as a Responsible Engineer on Thrust Structure for SpaceX, and an Engineering Manager for Power Solutions International.
Tyler Reid
(Co-Founder & CTO)Was also a Lecturer at Stanford University and a Research Engineer in Controls and Automated Systems at Ford Motor Company.
Adrien Perkins
(Co-Founder & VP of Engineering)Worked as a Research Assistant for Stanford University and was Lead Software Developer at Callsnapp.
Bryan Chan
(Co-Founder & VP of Corporate Strategy)Also the Co-Founder, President and CEO at Night Crew Labs. Previously Co-founded and was Technical Director for Mothership Communications.
Jerami Martin
(Co-Founder & Director of Payload Mechanical)Also works as a Mechanical Design and Systems Engineer at Pumpkin. Prior to this, they were an Engineer at Crosstrac Engineering.
Kazuma Gunning
(Co-Founder, Vice President & Navigation Services)Previously worked as a GNSS Modeling and Simulation Engineer for Booz Allen Hamilton and was a Doctoral Student at Stanford University.
Paul Tarantino
(Co-Founder & Director of Integration and Test)After studying at Stanford University, they went on to work as a Propulsion and Fluid Flight Systems Engineering Intern for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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