Group Lead - Ground Software Systems (GSS)
Pixxel
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Role: Engineering Manager
Employment Type: Full Time
Work Experience: 8–12+ years of relevant experience (including 3+ years in engineering leadership)
Education: Bachelor’s / Master’s in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
Role Description:
We are looking for an Engineering Manager – Ground Software Systems to lead the development of scalable, reliable, and mission-critical ground software platforms that power satellite operations.
You will lead a 12+ member engineering team across frontend, backend, DevOps, and infrastructure, delivering ground software across multiple satellite programmes including internal commercial missions and customer-supplied missions that support:
Mission Operations Software
Acquisition Planning
Flight Dynamics
Payload Data Processing
This role requires a strong combination of technical leadership, product thinking, and people leadership, with ownership of delivery, architecture, team growth, and execution excellence.
You will work closely with mission engineering, operations, product, and commercial teams to translate complex mission needs into robust software systems.
Key Responsibilities
Engineering Leadership & Delivery
Own end-to-end delivery of ground software systems, including planning, execution, and release timelines
Define engineering roadmaps aligned with mission, product, and business priorities.
Provide accurate estimates, timelines, and risk assessments to stakeholders.
Ensure high standards of code quality, reliability, scalability, and system performance.
Drive engineering execution with a strong focus on accountability, predictability, and velocity.
Support program execution, reviews, and stakeholder communication.
Team Management & Development
Lead and manage a cross-functional team (10–12 engineers) across frontend, backend, DevOps, and infrastructure.
Hire, mentor, and develop engineers across experience levels.
Demonstrates a servant leadership mindset, enabling teams to succeed through support, clarity, and empowerment.
Handle team dynamics, resolve conflicts, and foster a high-performance engineering culture.
Product & Technical Strategy
Collaborate with product, mission planning, operations and commercial teams to define product vision and roadmap.
Translate mission and operational requirements into scalable software architectures and features.
Define and drive product and variant strategy for ground systems across different mission/customer needs.
Balance short-term delivery goals with long-term platform strategy.
Enable rapid prototyping and iteration for new mission concepts and capabilities.
Architecture, Infrastructure & Systems Design
Guide system architecture for Mission planning, Flight dynamics, acquisition planning and Ground segment systems
Design scalable, reliable systems across backend, frontend, and infrastructure layers
Lead development of cloud-native systems and On-premise deployments for customer-specific requirements
Ensure robust DevOps practices including CI/CD, monitoring, observability, and incident response.
AI & Automation Strategy
Define and drive the AI strategy within engineering workflows and products
Assess, pilot and institutionalise AI tools to build robust agentic development workflows
Enable use of AI for - developer productivity (code generation, testing, debugging) and Intelligent automation within ground systems
Encourage adoption of modern tooling and frameworks to improve engineering efficiency
Technical Areas of Expertise
The ideal candidate will have strong experience across several of the following:
1. Software Architecture, System Design and Infrastructure
Distributed systems, APIs, data-intensive applications
Frontend systems for visualization and operational workflows
System design for high-scale, data-intensive applications
Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), containerization and orchestration, CI/CD and Observability
Data & Processing Systems
Real-time and batch data pipelines
Handling large-scale telemetry and mission data
Performance optimization for compute-heavy workflows
Mission/Domain Exposure (Desirable)
Satellite ground segment systems
Mission planning / scheduling systems
Flight dynamics or scientific computation pipelines
Required Skills & Qualification:
8+ years of software engineering experience with strong system design expertise
3+ years of experience leading software engineering teams
Recent hands-on experience in backend development
Experience building and delivering cloud-based systems
Strong problem-solving, leadership, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills
Desirable Skills:
Experience in aerospace, scientific computing or optimization systems
Experience with hybrid (cloud + on-prem) deployments
Experience leading teams through scale or organizational change
What success looks like in this role
A high-performing engineering team delivering reliable and scalable ground software systems.
Strong alignment between product, mission, and engineering teams.
Predictable and high-quality ground software delivery across multiple programs.
Variant cleanliness: Core products remain modular and extensible, without being polluted by mission-specific logic; clear separation between platform capabilities and customer-specific customizations is consistently maintained.
Continuous improvement in engineering productivity through tooling, AI adoption, and process optimization.
Candidate Acumen:
Someone who is detail-oriented, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced hardware environment.
Benefits:
Health insurance coverage
Unlimited leaves & flexible working hours
Role-based remote work and work-from-home benefit
Relocation assistance
Professional Mental Wellness services
Creche facility for primary caregivers (limited to India)
Employee Stock Options for all hires
About Pixxel
Pixxel is a space data company and spacecraft manufacturer redefining Earth observation with hyperspectral imaging. The company’s first three commercial hyperspectral satellites—Fireflies—deliver imagery at 5-meter resolution and 135+ spectral bands, providing 50x richer detail than traditional Earth observation systems and unlocking insights across agriculture, climate, energy, environment, and more.
Once fully deployed, Pixxel’s constellation of 18-24 satellites will capture imagery across up to 250 bands in VNIR and SWIR ranges, with a 40 km swath and daily global revisit capability. Pixxel’s most unique strength is its full-stack approach, integrating every layer of the value chain from satellite hardware and manufacturing to AI-powered analytics.
Pixxel’s satellite constellation is complemented by Aurora, its in-house Earth Observation Studio that simplifies satellite imagery analysis and democratises remote sensing for all. Designed to make hyperspectral data more accessible, Aurora by Pixxel combines high-frequency imagery with AI-powered tools to generate actionable insights, even for users without technical backgrounds. The third pillar of Pixxel’s ecosystem is its in-house satellite manufacturing capability. Beyond building its own spacecraft, Pixxel also provides satellite systems and subsystems to other organisations. This dual capacity sets it apart in a sector where most companies focus on either payload design or data operations, but not both.
Pixxel’s team is young but deeply mission-aligned, with a culture rooted in curiosity, speed, and long-term thinking. As the company grows its constellation and expands Aurora, the focus remains on making space-based insights practical, scalable, and genuinely helpful so that the health of the planet becomes measurable and action becomes possible.
Pixxel was the only Indian startup selected for the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles and has been recognised in TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Via Satellite’s Top Innovators list.
For more information, see ourCareers page or follow Pixxel onLinkedIn andX/Twitter.
Culture
Pixxel is an organization where we enable our employees to work on world-changing problems that they are passionate about, and a place where they can be their best selves day in and day out while ensuring they have fun every day.
Central to our employee-first ethos is a commitment to ensuring that every team member feels valued and heard. We nurture a healthy and supportive work environment where we prioritise well-being and growth in all aspects of life
Link to Pixxel in Media
