Onboard Software Engineer

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.