Onboard Software Engineer - Peripheral Services

Onboard Software Engineer - Peripheral Services

Wanna join the adventure? Loft's Onboard Software group provides the on-orbit software that powers our core products. This is responsible for monitoring and control of major space program elements, including:

• Flight Products computational environments (including physical and virtual processors);
• Interfaces with external equipment (imagers, RF, ISL); and
• Interfaces with the spacecraft bus.

The Peripheral Services team is responsible for services and functions that interact with external physical units such as imagers, radios, and customer payloads. Many of these services are reused across all satellite programs and form the building blocks of our onboard architecture.

About This Role:

Design, implement, and refine software with a high degree of ownership, driving impactful features from concept through delivery while ensuring robustness and reliability.

Review code, provide clear feedback, and enforce adherence to established development processes, style guides, and design standards to maintain consistency and quality across the codebase.

Design and implement unit tests for both self-authored and peer-authored code.

Utilize version control systems to create feature branches, push code, and merge approved code into production branches.

Contribute to the onboard software architecture through design proposals and collaborative review.

Participate in the review and enhancement of software development processes and design standards.

Coordinate with downstream teams on the release, distribution, and adoption of the latest releases.

In addition to responsibilities within onboard software, you'll have the opportunity to directly be involved in operating our on-orbit fleet of satellites.

Must Haves:

• 3+ years' software engineering experience, using programming languages including C/C++ (C++11 or newer) and Python.
• Experience with version control systems such as Git
• Knowledge of continuous integration tools (e.g., GitLab-CI, Jenkins).
• Knowledge of build systems (e.g., Make, CMake).
• Understanding of distributed architecture.
• Familiarity with networking protocols (e.g., UDP, TCP, IP) and POSIX standards.
• Experience in developing multi-threaded applications.

Nice To Haves:

• Familiarity with additional programming languages, such as Go or Rust.
• Experience with embedded Linux operation, including Yocto, device trees, systemd, and Linux on ARM platforms.
• Proficiency with unit test frameworks (e.g., pytest, Googletest, Unity) and keyword-driven test frameworks (e.g., Robot, Cucumber).
• Experience with middleware framework (gRPC, ZMQ/NATS, etc.)
• Experience with containerization technologies (Docker, K3S, systemd-nspawn)
• Experience with space systems and concepts

Some Of Our Awesome Benefits:

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance option for employees and dependents
• Flexible Spending (FSA) and Health Savings (HSA) Accounts offered with an employer contribution to the HSA
• 100% employer paid Life, AD&D, Short-Term, and Long-Term Disability insurance
• Flexible Time Off policy for vacation and sick leave, and 12 paid holidays
• 401(k) plan and equity options
• Daily catered lunches and snacks
• International exposure to our team in France
• Fully paid parental leave; 14 weeks for primary caregiver and 10 weeks for secondary caregiver
• Carrot Fertility provides comprehensive, inclusive fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits with financial support
• Off-sites and many social events and celebrations
• Relocation assistance when applicable

$125,000 - $175,000 a year

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 flexible 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, in-orbit demonstrations, 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 25 missions flown, Loft's flight heritage and proven technologies enable customers to focus on their mission objectives. At Loft, you'll be given the autonomy and ownership to solve significant challenges, but with a close-knit and supportive team at your back. We believe that diversity and community are the foundation of an open culture. We are committed to hiring the best people regardless of background and make their time at Loft the most fulfilling period of their career. We value kind, supportive and team-oriented collaborators. It is also crucial for us that you are a problem solver and a great communicator. As our team is international, you will need strong English skills to better collaborate, easily communicate complex ideas and convey important messages. With 4 satellites on-orbit and a wave of exciting missions launching soon, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, CA | Golden, CO | and Toulouse, France. As an international company your resume will be reviewed by people across our offices so please attach a copy in English.