ground software engineer, lead — relativity space
C++ and Go for systems that run rocket engine tests.
00 / interests
01 / work
2026 —
Ground Software Engineer, Lead
Leads the full-stack Platform group; 4 reports, still shipping.
- Lead the full-stack Platform group (4 direct reports) that owns the tooling, deployment infrastructure, and system-management layer 100+ engineers and operators depend on within a safety-critical control software environment
- Rescoped and shipped an MVP Go/gRPC overhaul of a configuration deployment and state-management service in 4 weeks after direct user interviews surfaced it as a high-priority unmet need, then iterated it to full production delivery
- Own roadmap and mentor 4 direct reports while continuing hands-on IC work across the platform
2024 — 2026
Senior Ground Software Engineer
Sub-millisecond C++23 control services. Kubernetes IaC across 20+ environments. Bazel + GitLab CI, 20 min → 5.
- Built and operated full-stack, low-latency Linux data acquisition and control services on a distributed pub/sub architecture (C++23, DDS), achieving sub-millisecond control authority in a production, safety-critical system
- Co-owned Kubernetes deployment infrastructure-as-code across 20+ independent production environments; migrated critical services to enable automatic restarts, controlled rollouts, and improved reliability
- Built developer CLI and pipeline tooling (Go, Python, Bash) — from one-off scripts to fully representative local deployment environments — to shorten the iteration loop for engineers building on the platform
- Designed and shipped a Bazel-based configuration framework (Starlark rules/macros/providers) used by 100+ semi-technical operators as a dependency, and re-architected CI pipelines (GitLab CI, GoogleTest, Pytest), cutting median pipeline time from 20 to 5 minutes
2023 — 2024
Ground Software Engineer II
Internal PaaS for 100+ bare-metal hosts, end to end: Go, gRPC, Helm, React/TypeScript.
- Architected and delivered a full-stack internal platform-as-a-service (Go, gRPC, Ansible, Docker, Helm/Kubernetes) for provisioning, configuring, and monitoring 100+ bare-metal hosts and industrial PCs across multiple sites
- Built the full application layer — REST/gRPC APIs, database schemas, and OpenTelemetry observability dashboards — giving 30+ operators correctness checks and visibility into system state at scale
- Refactored a performance-critical C++ service from a blocking multithreaded model to an event-driven (Boost.Asio) architecture, debugging contention issues to improve responsiveness under load
2021 — 2023
Ground Software Engineer I
Operator tooling in Ignition SCADA; live support through test and launch ops.
- Built tooling enabling 30+ operators across 3 sites to create custom GUIs in Ignition SCADA and tailor operational workflows to their own needs
- Provided real-time support during high-stakes test and launch operations, diagnosing issues and safely patching live production systems under time pressure
click any row for detail · full detail → resume.pdf
02 / before
2020
intern
NASA Glenn Research Center
SWE intern, electrified aircraft propulsion.
2018, 2019
intern
Clover Network
SWE intern, backend then frontend.
2021
B.S. ×2
Rowan University
B.S. Computer Science, B.S. Mechanical Engineering. Honors concentration, math minor.
03 / homelab
3-node k8s cluster running on refurb SFFs, local OAuth+OIDC, GitOps via Flux, fully reproducible via nixos-anywhere+colmena down to the disk. same discipline as the day job, lower stakes, considerably worse hardware.
more → homelab.brianchesko.dev ↗