Ground Software Engineer - Core

Wanna join the adventure?

Loft Orbital is looking for a Software Engineer to join our Core team within Ground Platform. The team develops the core capabilities that support Loft's ground platform, improve development workflows, and ensure platform reliability. You'll help build shared services and tools that benefit software teams across Loft.

You'll work on backend services, workflow automation, AI tooling, and platform infrastructure, with a focus on observability and reliability. You'll also have the opportunity to take part in spacecraft operations through SatDevOps rotations, helping investigate anomalies and supporting real-time incident response when needed.

If you're excited about improving how software is developed across Loft, contributing to key technical decisions, and building more reliable platform systems, we'd love to hear from you.

About this role:

• Evaluate and implement new technologies and software patterns that propagate to the entire Loft's software stack
• Lead the creation and evolution of Loft's AI tooling for development, review, and spacecraft anomaly investigation
• Develop central ground platform functionalities such as workflow automation, microservice inter-communication, and metrics
• Take responsibility for the reliability and performance of Loft's ground platform infrastructure, including message queues, CI/CD, and observability
• Have the opportunity to take part in spacecraft operations through SatDevOps rotations, occasionally helping investigate anomalies and supporting real‑time incident response when needed
• Collaborate with software engineers and satellite operators from all over the company to support and foster consistent, maintainable, and performant software solutions

Must Haves:

• Solid backend software development experience
• Hands-on knowledge of deployment and Infrastructure as Code
• Ability to define and maintain CI/CD pipelines
• Experience working with Kubernetes

Nice to Haves:

• Python development, particularly with Django
• Knowledge of GraphQL and Graphene
• Experience with message queues and streaming technologies (NATS)
• Knowledge of DevOps and observability tools (Helm, Terraform, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Loki, etc)
• Familiarity with AI tooling
• Frontend development with Vue and Web Components

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

$150,000 - $195,000 a year

State law requires us to tell you the base compensation range for this role, which is $140,000- $190,000 per year. This is determined by your education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. The salary range for this role is intentionally wide as we evaluate individuals based on their unique experience and abilities to fit our needs.

Most importantly, we are excited to meet you, and see if you are a great fit for our team. What we can’t quantify for you are the exciting challenges, supportive team, and amazing culture we enjoy.

*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.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans.

If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.