What is a Embedded Engineer at Astranis?

As an Embedded Engineer at Astranis, you are building the critical software that brings next-generation micro-geostationary satellites to life. This role sits at the absolute core of the company's mission to connect the unconnected. You will write the code that manages spacecraft subsystems, processes high-throughput network traffic in orbit, and rigorously tests hardware before it ever leaves the ground.

The impact of this position is immense. Because Astranis operates in a fast-paced, vertically integrated environment, you are not just writing isolated firmware. You are directly responsible for the reliability, performance, and safety of multi-million-dollar space assets. Whether you are developing low-level flight software, engineering network routing protocols for space-to-ground communication, or building production test infrastructure to validate flight hardware, your code ensures mission success in one of the harshest environments imaginable.

Expect a highly collaborative, cross-functional engineering culture. You will work shoulder-to-shoulder with hardware designers, FPGA engineers, and payload specialists. The complexity of the problems you will solve requires a deep understanding of the boundary between hardware and software, a relentless focus on system reliability, and the agility to iterate quickly without compromising quality.

Common Interview Questions

Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for an interview at Astranis requires more than just brushing up on syntax; you need to demonstrate a holistic understanding of embedded systems from the bare metal up to the application layer. Interviewers want to see how you think when the hardware behaves unexpectedly and how you architect software that cannot fail.

Focus your preparation on these key evaluation criteria:

• Firmware & Systems Engineering – You must exhibit a deep, intuitive grasp of C/C++, memory management, and real-time operating systems (RTOS). Interviewers will evaluate your ability to write highly efficient, deterministic code that respects strict resource constraints.
• Hardware-Software Co-design – You will be tested on your ability to read schematics, understand component datasheets, and communicate effectively with hardware engineers. Demonstrating experience with board bring-up and hardware debugging tools (like oscilloscopes and logic analyzers) is crucial.
• Mission-Critical Problem Solving – Spacecraft cannot be easily rebooted or patched once deployed. You must show how you design for fault tolerance, handle edge cases, and systematically debug complex system-level issues.
• Adaptability & Ownership – Astranis values engineers who take extreme ownership of their systems. You should be prepared to discuss how you have driven projects from initial concept through production, adapting to shifting requirements along the way.

Interview Process Overview

The interview process for an Embedded Engineer at Astranis is rigorous, practical, and highly focused on real-world engineering challenges. You will typically begin with a recruiter screen to align on your background, role interests (such as Network Software vs. Production Test), and compensation expectations. This is followed by a technical screen with a hiring manager or senior engineer, which usually involves a deep dive into your past projects and a live coding exercise focused on embedded C/C++ fundamentals, bit manipulation, or basic hardware interfacing.

If you advance, you will be invited to a comprehensive onsite or virtual panel. This stage is designed to test the limits of your technical depth and your ability to collaborate. You will face specialized rounds covering system architecture, advanced coding, hardware debugging, and behavioral alignment. Astranis interviewers rely heavily on practical scenarios rather than abstract puzzles; they want to see how you would troubleshoot a malfunctioning peripheral or architect a test suite for a new flight computer.

Expect an environment that is challenging but collaborative. Interviewers will often provide hints or pivot the constraints of a problem to see how you adapt. They are looking for engineers who remain calm under pressure, communicate their assumptions clearly, and drive toward pragmatic, robust solutions.

This timeline illustrates the typical progression from your initial recruiter conversation through the technical screens and the final multi-round panel. Use this visual to pace your preparation, ensuring you are ready for both the rapid-fire technical questions early on and the deep architectural and behavioral discussions required during the final stages. Minor variations may occur depending on whether you are interviewing for a senior role, network software, or production test software.

Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Embedded C/C++ and RTOS Fundamentals

This is the bedrock of your technical evaluation. Interviewers will probe your mastery of the C/C++ languages specifically within the context of resource-constrained, real-time environments. Strong performance means writing clean, deterministic code without relying on dynamic memory allocation, and demonstrating a flawless understanding of pointers, volatile variables, and bitwise operations.

Be ready to go over:

• Memory Management – Stack vs. heap, memory maps, alignment, and the dangers of memory fragmentation in long-running systems.
• Concurrency and Interrupts – Writing safe Interrupt Service Routines (ISRs), managing race conditions, and using mutexes, semaphores, and queues in an RTOS environment.
• Bit Manipulation – Setting, clearing, and toggling bits, packing and unpacking data structures, and handling endianness.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Custom bootloaders, memory protection units (MPUs), and compiler optimization flags.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Implement a circular buffer in C that is safe to be read from a main loop and written to by an ISR."
• "Explain the volatile keyword and provide three distinct scenarios where it must be used."
• "Write a function to reverse the bits of a 32-bit integer as efficiently as possible."

Hardware Interaction and Board Bring-up

Because you are building physical spacecraft and test equipment, you must prove you can bridge the gap between software and hardware. Interviewers want to know that you can read a datasheet, configure a microcontroller's peripherals, and debug a failing communication bus using standard lab equipment.

Be ready to go over:

• Communication Protocols – Deep understanding of I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, and Ethernet, including their physical layers and timing constraints.
• Peripheral Configuration – Setting up DMA, timers, ADCs, and DACs from scratch.
• Debugging Techniques – How you use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and multimeters to prove whether a bug is in the software or the hardware.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Signal integrity issues, clock domains, and basic FPGA interfacing.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through the exact steps you would take to bring up a custom PCB with a new microcontroller and an external SPI flash memory."
• "You are reading data over I2C and occasionally getting corrupted bytes. How do you isolate the root cause?"
• "Design a driver architecture for a sensor that takes 500ms to sample, ensuring the CPU isn't blocked during that time."

Networking and Test Infrastructure

Depending on your specific track (Network Software or Production Test), you will be evaluated on your ability to move data reliably or validate hardware at scale. Strong candidates will show they can architect robust Python-based test frameworks or implement high-throughput network stacks that survive high-latency, lossy environments.

Be ready to go over:

• Network Protocols – TCP/IP, UDP, routing algorithms, and custom packet structures.
• Test Automation – Using Python to control test equipment (SCPI), inject faults, and automate hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing.
• System Architecture – Designing scalable software that can test hundreds of boards simultaneously or route gigabits of data through a satellite payload.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Network simulation, RF fundamentals, and Linux kernel networking.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design an automated test suite for a newly manufactured power supply board. What hardware and software do you need?"
• "Explain how TCP handles packet loss and why it might be problematic over a high-latency satellite link."
• "Write a Python script to parse a binary log file and extract specific telemetry frames."