Flight Software Engineer
Loft Orbital
Software Engineering
Toulouse, France
Posted 6+ months ago
Wanna join the adventure?
The Loft Flight Software team provides the core on-orbit software that powers Loft’s Flight Products. This is responsible for monitoring and control of major space program elements including:
- Flight Products computational environments (including physical and virtual processors);
- Interfaces with RF communications equipment; and
- Interfaces with the spacecraft bus.
The core flight software is used by other teams at Loft, including Mission Specific Software, to provide interfaces between Ground Software and customer payloads. This includes “virtual” payloads which leverage available computing resources to enhance the value of payload elements already present on the vehicle.
The core flight software is responsible for delivering observability of all space program elements to the ground and collaborating on the infrastructure through which other teams at Loft, including the Integration team, are able to describe the logical structure of all telemetry and telecommands that have been implemented.
*Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other marginalized 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.
About this role:
- Follow the established software development process and adhere to published style and design standards.
- Develop, review, and refine code, ensuring quality and compliance with organizational guidelines.
- Design and implement unit tests for both self-authored and peer-authored code.
- Create and manage work tickets, including transitioning them through defined workflows and resolving them per published standards.
- Utilize version control systems to create feature branches, push code, and merge approved code into production branches.
- Approve merge requests for software classified at Levels D and E in compliance with organizational procedures.
- Contribute to trade studies, including recommending criteria and evaluation metrics as needed.
- Participate in the review and enhancement of software development processes and design standards.
Must Haves:
- Proficiency in programming languages, including C/C++ (any version) and Python.
- Experience with version control systems such as Git (e.g., GitLab, Bitbucket, GitHub, JetBrains Space).
- Familiarity with ticketing systems (e.g., Jira, Redmine, Mantis, Trac, YouTrack).
- Knowledge of continuous integration tools (e.g., GitLab-CI, TeamCity, Jenkins, Bamboo, Travis).
- Expertise in build systems (e.g., Make, CMake, Autotools, Bazel).
- Understanding of distributed application frameworks, such as Message Oriented Middleware (DDS, MQTT, JMS), Message Queue Frameworks (ZMQ, NNG), CANOpen, Player/Stage, Remote Procedure Call systems (gRPC, CORBA, ACE), CCSDS MO, or ECSS PUS.
- Familiarity with networking protocols (e.g., UDP, TCP, IP) and POSIX standards.
- Experience in developing multi-threaded applications.
- Application domain expertise in one or more of the following: packet serialization/deserialization, data model serialization/deserialization (e.g., YAML, JSON, XML), or real-time metrics (e.g., RRDB, InfluxDB, Prometheus).
Nice to Haves:
- Familiarity with additional programming languages, such as C++11/14/17, and Bash.
- 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) and keyword-driven test frameworks (e.g., Robot, Cucumber).
- Experience with static analysis tools (e.g., Clang, LLVM, Cppcheck) and source code linters (e.g., Clang-Format, Parasoft).
- Knowledge of middleware frameworks (e.g., ROS, OpenSplice, Leyly, Mosquitto) or embedded databases (e.g., SQLite, TileDB).
Some of Our Awesome Benefits (France):
- 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
Who We Are
Loft Orbital builds “shareable” satellites, providing a fast & simple path to orbit for organizations that require access to space. Powered by our hardware & software products, we operate satellites, fly customer payloads onboard, and handle entire missions from end to end - significantly reducing the lead-time and risk of a traditional space mission.
Our standard interface enables us to fly multiple customer payloads on the same satellite, with capabilities such as earth imagery, weather & climate /science data collection, IoT connectivity, in-orbit demonstrations, and national security missions. Our customers trust us to manage their space infrastructure, so they can focus on what matters most to them: operating their mission and collecting their data.
At Loft, you’ll be given the autonomy and ownership to solve significant challenges, but with a close-knit and supportive team at your back. We believe that diversity and community are the foundation of an open culture. We are committed to hiring the best people regardless of background and make their time at Loft the most fulfilling period of their career.
We value kind, supportive and team-oriented collaborators. It is also crucial for us that you are a problem solver and a great communicator. As our team is international, you will need strong English skills to better collaborate, easily communicate complex ideas and convey important messages.
With 4 satellites on-orbit and a wave of exciting missions launching soon, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, CA | Golden, CO | and Toulouse, France.
As an international company your resume will be reviewed by people across our offices so please attach a copy in English.