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Software Engineer @ Northwood Space • Rust • Safety-Critical Systems
I build safety-critical, low-latency software for ground station infrastructure, from high-fidelity hardware simulators to the orchestration systems that bring sites online. Off the clock: custom CPU architectures and bare-metal firmware.
01. About Me
I am a Software Engineer at Northwood Space, where I build safety-critical, low-latency systems for ground station infrastructure, from high-fidelity hardware simulators to the orchestration software that brings sites online. My obsession with understanding how things work down to the bare metal didn't start in a bootcamp; it started in Minecraft, where I manually routed clock signals and debugged race conditions with redstone before I ever wrote a line of code.
That curiosity evolved into Electron, a 4-stage pipelined RISC CPU I designed from first principles. Refusing to stop at simulation, I built a complete ecosystem in Rust, including an assembler that performs static analysis to resolve data hazards, to validate my architecture against real-world constraints.
During an onsite engineering sprint for a nuclear energy startup, I manually calculated byte offsets to reverse-engineer proprietary PLC protocols. In under 9 hours, I architected a fault-tolerant telemetry system in Async Rust to interface with neutron flux detectors at sub-10ms latency.
On the side, I lead "Until Every Cage is Empty", an open-source geospatial platform serving 56,000+ records in a highly optimized 2.7MB payload. It has scaled to 3,000+ monthly users and secured a Seed Grant from The Pollination Project.
That range (hand-wiring CPUs, reverse-engineering industrial protocols, shipping systems people depend on) is what led me to Northwood. Today I get to apply the same rigor to real infrastructure: building the simulators and orchestration systems that keep our ground network reliable.
02. Showcase: Until Every Cage Is Empty
Live Data Feed
About: The largest animal agriculture mapping project ever built. Mapping 56,000 locations across 10 countries and 4 languages, serving over 3,000 users.
Initializing...
03. Showcase: Browser Flight Simulator
About
Written in pure Rust, compiled to WebAssembly. Per-surface Cessna 172 aerodynamic model based on Khan & Nahon (2015), an infinite procedural world, and live multiplayer. No JavaScript, no backend.
04. Experience
Work History
Software Engineer
Northwood Space
Jul 2026 - Present
Los Angeles, CA • Full-time
Building safety-critical software for ground station infrastructure.
- ▹ Build high-fidelity hardware simulators in Rust
- ▹ Architect and maintain orchestration software for ground site health and bring-up
- ▹ Work across systems and async Rust to support mission-critical ground operations
Software Engineer Intern
Northwood Space
Mar 2026 - Jul 2026
Los Angeles, CA • Internship
Interned on the ground station software team ahead of converting full-time.
- ▹ Contributed to hardware simulators and site orchestration tooling in Rust
- ▹ Ramped up on safety-critical, low-latency async systems
- ▹ Converted to a full-time offer after 5 months
Education
Southwestern College
A.S. in Computer Science
Key Coursework
05. Featured Projects
High-frequency Async Rust interface for Industrial PLCs
A mission-critical telemetry interface built during a 9-hour engineering sprint for Valar Atomics. The system interfaces with triple-redundant safety PLCs to stream real-time data from neutron flux detectors and seismometers.
Gallery
- ▹ Engineered a custom EtherNet/IP client in Async Rust
- ▹ Achieved sub-10ms latency communication with Safety PLCs
- ▹ Reverse-engineered proprietary tag structures by implementing a custom Rust decoder
4-Stage Pipelined 8-bit RISC CPU
A custom 8-bit ISA with a raw pipeline architecture, hand-wired using Redstone digital logic gates. Includes a custom Rust toolchain for static analysis and emulation.
Gallery
- ▹ Custom 8-bit ISA ('Electron 2') with raw pipeline architecture
- ▹ Rust toolchain (Assembler/Emulator) performing static analysis for data hazards
- ▹ In-browser visual debugger via WebAssembly and SvelteKit
Full-stack geospatial platform for animal rights
An open-source geospatial platform that aggregates data from dozens of public sources. It serves over 56,000 documented facilities to 3,000+ monthly users, including journalists and researchers.
Gallery
- ▹ Serves 56,000+ documented facilities to 3,000+ monthly users
- ▹ High-performance Rust API utilizing Brotli compression and aggressive caching
- ▹ Delivers massive geospatial datasets in a highly optimized 2.7MB payload
Physics-accurate Cessna 172 with live multiplayer, running in WebAssembly
A research-grade aerodynamic flight simulator built in Rust with Bevy and Avian3D, compiled to WebAssembly. Features a per-surface Cessna 172 flight model, an infinite procedurally generated world, and a client-authoritative multiplayer backend running on Tokio and Axum.
- ▹ Khan & Nahon 2015 aerodynamic model: ailerons, elevator, rudder, flaps, and body lift surfaces each computed independently
- ▹ Live multiplayer over WebSocket with client-authoritative physics and a 150ms interpolation buffer to smooth remote aircraft through network jitter
- ▹ One Tokio/Axum server process hosts multiple in-memory worlds at once, each addressed by a server ID, with idle worlds auto-reaped after 5 minutes
- ▹ Infinite procedural terrain from layered Perlin noise, a temperature/humidity biome climate map, and 4-level LOD streaming
- ▹ Deterministic world generation from a single seed means the server never transmits heightmap data, just the seed on join
- ▹ Dual-camera pipeline rendering to a 640x360 texture upscaled with integer pixel scaling for a retro aesthetic
06. Get In Touch
My Links
© 2026 Eli Perez
