Onboard Software Engineer - Peripheral Services

Wanna join the adventure?

Loft’s Onboard Software group provides the on-orbit software that powers our satellite fleet — from the Linux services running on the Hub’s onboard computers, to the containerized workloads executing customer applications in low Earth orbit.

The Peripheral Services team owns the software that integrates third-party devices and payloads into Loft’s standardized satellite platform. We enable the control and monitoring of many key spacecraft components, including optical payloads, radios, power controllers, and GNSS receivers. Many of these components are reused across all satellite programs and form the building blocks of our onboard architecture.

The applications developed by our team handle the low-level communication protocol details, exposing the connected devices behind standardized APIs used across mission operations. The team is also responsible for the automation and orchestration that allows Loft to safely and reliably operate the equipment at scale.

In this role, you’ll help develop the software that connects diverse spacecraft hardware to the rest of the platform, and ultimately enables successful missions in orbit.

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 and integration 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 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.
• Proficiency with Git and collaborative development workflows
• Experience with continuous integration tools (GitLab-CI, Jenkins, or similar).
• 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.
• Previous team leader or manager role

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)
• 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:

• 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.

Who We Are

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.