Head Of AI Engineering

Head Of AI Engineering

Wanna join the adventure? AI for Space is Loft's newest business unit, focused on building the Loft Mission Store - an open platform where AI companies publish models, satellite operators deploy them in orbit, and the system delivers structured intelligence rather than raw imagery. The team is lean, the ambition is significant, and the satellites are already operational.

As Head of AI Engineering, you are the most senior technical leader within the AI for Space team, responsible for owning the technical strategy and execution of the AI Marketplace and Loft Labs ML tooling. You define what gets built and how, bridging the gap between research (Loft Labs) and production (implementation engineers), and setting the technical standard for every AI service deployed on the platform. Reporting to the General Manager, AI for Space, you work closely with Loft's broader engineering, Solutions, and Architecture (CTO platform) teams to ensure seamless integration of AI services with Cockpit, Loft's satellite operations platform, and the partner ecosystem. A key part of the role is establishing clear boundaries between marketplace and ML-specific capabilities owned by the AI team and those developed by existing platform teams.

About This Role:

• Define and own the technical roadmap for the AI Marketplace and all AI services, working closely with the Head of Product Management.
• Bridge Loft Labs research outputs and production-grade service delivery.
• Hire and lead a team of AI services engineers (initially 2-3, growing to 5-7) responsible for the AI-specific services that partners and solution engineers need to build end-to-end solutions on the marketplace (data and model sandboxes, test environments, simulation, super resolution, multimodal orchestration).
• Collaborate closely with the rest of engineering to set architecture standards for ML model deployment, inference pipelines, and edge compute (Hub Compute).
• Work with partners (Helsing, Mistral, NVIDIA, Kayrros, and others) to integrate third-party AI models into the platform.
• Define the sandbox, testing, and certification pipeline for AI services, leveraging existing TestBench/SEAL infrastructure where possible.
• Collaborate with Cockpit and ground software teams on tasking interfaces, orchestration, and the regulatory compliance layer (export control, sensitive areas, data retention).

Must Haves:

• 7-15 years of hands-on engineering experience, with meaningful time building ML/AI systems.
• Track record of shipping production ML systems, not just research prototypes.
• Experience building and managing engineering teams (3-10 people).
• Strong opinions on ML infrastructure, model serving, and deployment pipelines, held with intellectual honesty.
• Comfortable across the stack: model optimization, API design, infrastructure, and team leadership.
• Direct, low-ego communication. You explain your reasoning and change your mind when evidence warrants it.

Nice To Haves:

• Experience with edge compute, embedded ML, or on-device inference (NVIDIA Jetson, TensorRT, ONNX).
• Background in space, defense, or geospatial systems.
• Familiarity with satellite operations, Earth observation data, or RF signal processing.

Some Of Our Awesome Benefits:

• Equity, we want you to have an active role in our success
• Up to 35 days of Paid Time Off (vacations & RTT) and flexible working hours, we want you to be at your best
• Health and life insurance, we care about your health
• Lunch Vouchers, because let's be honest, we love food! (we even have a slack channel about it #loft-gourmand)
• Cross-office travel opportunities between San Francisco, Colorado, and Toulouse to learn from our differences
• Company and team off-sites and many other events to work & celebrate together
• Relocation assistance to Toulouse when applicable

* Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other underrepresented people tend to only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications. At Loft, we value respectful debate and people who aren't afraid to challenge assumptions. We strongly encourage you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes.

Loft: Space Made Simple.

Founded in 2017, Loft provides governments, companies, and research institutions with a fast, reliable, and simple way to deploy missions in orbit.

We integrate, launch, and operate spacecraft, offering end-to-end missions as a service across Earth observation, IoT connectivity, on-orbit AI, national security missions, and more. Leveraging our existing space infrastructure and an extensive inventory of satellite buses, Loft is reducing years-long integration and launch timelines to months. With more than 30 missions flown, Loft's flight heritage and proven technologies enable customers to focus on their mission objectives.

With a growing fleet on track to reach 30 satellites by 2027, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, CA | Golden, CO | and Toulouse, France to meet accelerating demand for space infrastructure.

As an international company your resume will be reviewed by people across our offices so please attach a copy in English.