Onboard Software Engineer - Core Services Verified today
About the role
Loft's Onboard Software group provides the flight software that powers our core products. The Core Services team is responsible for high-level vehicle services and functions, including file transfer, time synchronization, automation, scheduling, attitude control, and navigation. Many of these services are reused across all satellite programs and form the foundation of our onboard architecture.
This software monitors and controls major space program elements:
- Flight Products computational environments (physical and virtual processors)
- Interfaces with external equipment (imagers, RF, inter-satellite links)
- Interfaces with the spacecraft bus
What you will do
- Design, implement, and refine software with 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 development processes, style guides, and design standards
- 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
- Contribute to onboard software architecture through design proposals and collaborative review
- Participate in review and enhancement of software development processes and design standards
- Coordinate with downstream teams on release, distribution and adoption of latest releases
- Directly operate Loft's on-orbit fleet of satellites
Must have
- 2+ years software engineering experience with C/C++ (C++11 or newer) and Python
- Experience with version control systems such as Git
- Experience with continuous integration tools (e.g. GitLab-CI, Jenkins)
- Experience with build systems (e.g. Make, CMake)
- Understanding of distributed architecture
- Familiarity with networking protocols (UDP, TCP, IP) and POSIX standards
- Experience developing multi-threaded applications
Nice to have
- 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 (pytest, Googletest, Unity) and keyword-driven test frameworks (Robot, Cucumber)
- Experience with middleware frameworks (gRPC, ZMQ, NATS)
- Experience with containerization technologies (Docker, K3S, systemd-nspawn)
Benefits
- 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents
- Flexible Spending (FSA) and Health Savings (HSA) Accounts with employer HSA contribution
- 100% employer paid Life, AD&D, Short-Term, and Long-Term Disability insurance
- Flexible Time Off policy for vacation and sick leave, plus 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 primary caregiver, 10 weeks secondary caregiver
- Carrot Fertility comprehensive family-forming benefits
- Off-sites and social events
- 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 operate offices in San Francisco CA, Golden CO, and Toulouse France.