Ground Software Engineer - Core

Loft Orbital is hiring a Ground Software Engineer - Core. It pays $140k-$190k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Loft Orbital.

Level's read on this job

Little AI ●○○○ is how Level rates this software engineer role: aI is not part of the work.
Level lists 71 other open roles at Loft Orbital.
The role was posted in the last few days.

AI in this role

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

*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.

How we rate this

Ground Software Engineer - Core at Loft Orbital rates 32 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.