Performance Engineer - COSMOS Mission Operations

About the role

The Performance Engineer joins the Performance Engineering team of the Contract for Organizing Spaceflight Mission Operations and Systems (COSMOS), NASA's next-generation mission operations contract. The role covers system performance engineering for ground systems in the Mission Control Center Systems (MCCS), Training Systems (TS) and Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (SVMF), validating non-functional requirements during development and after deployment. The engineer works with the NASA customer, systems engineers and software engineers to measure and evaluate system performance, and supports human spaceflight during launch, rendezvous and landing.

Key responsibilities

• Work with COSMOS Platform/OS and Software Engineers, System Testers and Project Managers to ensure system performance and stability across MCC and Training systems
• Take part in mission systems failure and anomaly investigations, support real-time mission activities and attend customer daily operations meetings
• Join integration assignments in the Integration Services department
• Collect, process and protect raw resource utilization data from workstations, servers and networks, and provide resource metrics for platforms and networking devices
• Maintain technical performance measures, establish baselines of current system behavior and estimate the impact of proposed changes
• Investigate system anomalies, identify trends that may violate resource constraints, and provide specifications for new equipment
• Perform cost, risk, supportability analyses, systems analysis, functional analysis, statistical analysis, trade studies and requirements allocation
• Develop automation scripts and process improvements, and support critical phases of manned spaceflight

Required profile

• Bachelor's or Master's degree (preferred in Computer Science, Engineering, IT, MIS, Math or a related field) and 2 to 5 years of experience
• Previous experience with scripting and/or automation, and with the software development life cycle (SDLC)
• Ability to work flexible hours, including second or third shift, nights and weekends, and 24x7 on-call support
• Able to obtain a NASA Personal Identity Verification (PIV) badge
• Strong initiative, teamwork, troubleshooting and problem-solving skills, and ability to work under tight deadlines

Required skills

• Coding skills in Python, C++, Linux and Windows
• Scripting and automation
• Desired: data visualization (Power BI), Docker/Pod containers, Office 365, Windows administration, networking (Wireshark), ServiceNow, SolarWinds, Splunk, data mining and data management

Salary is estimated at $92k-$120k per year, depending on experience, education and certifications.