Director of Embedded Software & FPGA Engineering Verified today

About this role

As Director of Embedded Software and FPGA Engineering, you will shape the technical foundations that determine how Loft's hardware, embedded software, onboard software, and operational systems work together. You will define the abstraction layers and engineering interfaces that let teams move faster without sacrificing robustness, reliability, or system understanding.

You will lead experienced engineers who work at the intersection of hardware, firmware, software, systems, and operations. This role is hands-on in the technical sense: you will not write production code every day, but you should be comfortable going deep into architecture, Linux and build environments, debugging, security boundaries, integration problems, and technical trade-offs alongside the team.

Key responsibilities

• Own the embedded software and FPGA roadmap and technical direction across Loft's satellite platforms.
• Define hardware-abstraction architecture and interfaces across FPGA, embedded software, onboard software, and operational layers.
• Drive hardware-agnostic and reusable platform capabilities where they improve team independence and allow hardware and technology to evolve.
• Enable the embedded software and FPGA leads through clear direction, decision context, coaching, and removal of organizational or technical blockers.
• Set expectations for architecture, design reviews, code quality, testing, verification, documentation, and operational readiness.
• Build the core engineering foundation for Linux, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, CI/CD, reproducible builds, and secure or sovereign environments.
• Guide technology choices involving hypervisors, RISC-V, Rust, and other platform technologies when they create durable value.
• Act as the face of embedded software and FPGA engineering and the triage point for company-wide technical issues, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Manage and develop geographically distributed leads and teams, including hiring, mentorship, performance management, and team health.
• Represent the organization with customers, partners, and government or defense stakeholders when formal assurance and documentation are required.

Required experience

• 10 or more years in embedded systems, FPGA, firmware, or closely related engineering, including delivery of mission-critical hardware or software.
• Proven experience leading and managing technical teams, including geographically distributed teams.
• Deep experience with FPGA design, embedded C/C++, real-time systems, and hardware/software integration.
• Experience designing hardware abstractions and hardware-agnostic interfaces from both technical and architectural perspectives.
• Strong Linux kernel and embedded Linux experience, including low-level integration, drivers, boot, or system debugging.
• Strong Yocto/OpenEmbedded and CI/CD experience, including build infrastructure, automated testing, and reproducible releases.
• Experience building secure and sovereign environments, including trust boundaries, secure boot, signing, controlled dependencies, or related security architecture.
• Experience with hypervisors, RISC-V, ARM and Rust development environments.
• Track record of making sound trade-offs across reliability, performance, security, schedule, and technology evolution.
• Collaborative, solution-minded leadership with the ability to enable leads, manage people with empathy and accountability, and act as a trusted cross-company technical representative.

Nice to have

• Experience with spacecraft avionics, command and data handling (C&DH), payload interfaces, or satellite flight systems.
• Experience in New Space or satellite manufacturing, particularly standardized, modular, or repeatable satellite platforms.
• Experience with radiation-tolerant or radiation-hardened design and understanding of the space environment.
• Experience with real-time operating systems such as RTEMS, FreeRTOS, or VxWorks.
• Experience with high-speed interfaces such as Ethernet, SpaceWire, SpaceFibre, CAN, PCIe, USB, or MIL-STD-1553.
• Experience with ARM-based embedded systems, U-Boot, ARM Trusted Firmware, device-tree overlays, or secure boot implementation.
• Experience contributing to upstream Linux or maintaining kernel modules, platform drivers, or low-level middleware.
• Experience with hypervisor isolation, virtualized I/O, partitioning, or mixed-criticality system design.
• Experience using RISC-V or Rust in production, platform, tooling, or security-sensitive environments.
• Exposure to onboard AI/ML compute or edge-processing hardware.
• Experience supporting government or defense programs with formal assurance, security, sovereignty, and documentation requirements.

Benefits

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance option for employees and dependents
• Flexible Spending (FSA) and Health Savings (HSA) Accounts with employer contribution to 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 team in France
• Fully paid parental leave: 14 weeks for primary caregiver and 10 weeks for secondary caregiver
• Carrot Fertility comprehensive, inclusive fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits with financial support
• Off-sites and social events and celebrations
• Relocation assistance when applicable

About Loft Orbital

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.

With more than 30 missions flown and a growing fleet on track to reach 30 satellites by 2027, we are scaling quickly across offices in San Francisco, CA; Golden, CO; and Toulouse, France.