Principal Embedded Systems Security Engineer

About this role

Space is a warfighting domain. True Anomaly seeks those with the talent and ambition to build the technology that secures it. OUR MISSION True Anomaly delivers decisive capabilities for space superiority. We build autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, mission software, and space-based interceptors — enabling the U.S. and its Allies to secure the space environment and counter threats from the ultimate high ground. OUR VALUES Be the offset. We create asymmetric advantages with creativity and ingenuity. What would it take? We challenge assumptions to deliver ambitious results. It’s the people. Our team is our competitive advantage and we are better together. YOUR MISSION Embedded systems security for space operations poses unique challenges: remote systems that must operate in adversarial RF environments, resource- constrained hardware, and trade-offs between security and performance in real-time systems. As our Principal Embedded Systems Security Engineer, you’ll own the security of our spacecraft, radio systems, and hardware platforms. You’ll build security platforms and foundational services that enable our hardware and software teams to develop secure embedded systems by default. This role demands deep security expertise and the rigor that comes from engineering systems that cannot fail. As part of the Platform Security team, you’ll work hands-on across C++ flight software, embedded C firmware within microcontrollers and radiation-hardened SoCs, FPGA designs, and real-time operating systems. Your work will impact the spacecraft’s critical subsystems, from flight computer through command and control, RF, and payload. If you’ve secured systems where failure means loss of life or national security impact, you’ll understand the constraints and rigor required here. This is a hands-on technical leadership role combining deep hardware security expertise with strong software engineering skills. You will write production code and build the tooling, test frameworks, and security validation platforms that harden our embedded systems at scale. You’ll tackle novel security challenges that don’t have an established playbook as we aim to set the standard for space-based security. In our AI-native environment, you’ll use AI to accelerate your work and help solve the hard problems of embedded systems security. This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance. Responsibilities Own the security architecture, threat modeling, and defensive controls for our spacecraft platform. This spans the flight computer, subsystem firmware, FPGA gateware, cryptographic implementations, and secure boot. Architect and build the security platforms, tooling, and foundational services that make secure-by-default the standard across flight software, firmware, and hardware configuration. Design and implement PKI for resource-constrained spacecraft, covering device authentication, firmware signing and verification, secure boot, lifecycle management, and secure key storage. Architect cryptographic and security implementations to meet stringent government standards, including FIPS 140-3, CNSA 2.0, and CCSDS Space Data Link Security (SDLS), and drive the migration to post-quantum cryptography across the platform. Secure the flight software build and deployment pipeline by hardening the tooling itself and protecting the supply-chain integrity of build outputs, dependencies, and third-party components. Secure our test environments against supply-chain attacks while keeping them representative of the flight security posture, so we can exercise on the ground the controls used to protect the spacecraft in orbit. Lead security assessments and penetration testing against our spacecraft, RF systems, and test environments. Drive the adoption of secure design practices across the organization, partnering with flight software, hardware, and test engineering teams to embed security into the full development and validation lifecycle. Tackle novel s