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Director of Embedded Software & FPGA Engineering

Loft Orbital Solutions

Job Location:

Golden, CO - USA

Yearly Salary: USD 195000 - 275000

Posted: 23 September 2026 (21 hours ago)

Application Deadline: 21 December 2026

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Wanna join the adventure

Loft Orbital is making space simple giving commercial defense and government customers fast reliable access to orbit through a standardized satellite platform. Our Hub and Cockpit products cut the complexity of traditional satellite missions reducing time-to-orbit from years to months as we build a growing heterogeneous fleet in LEO with increasing onboard AI and compute.

As Director Embedded Systems & FPGA Engineering you will shape the technical foundations that determine how Lofts hardware embedded software onboard software and operational systems work together. This is an opportunity to define the abstraction layers and engineering interfaces that let teams move faster without sacrificing robustness reliability or system understanding. You will help create a platform that can evolve across processors FPGAs operating systems hypervisors RISC-V Rust and future technologies without forcing unnecessary changes through every layer of the stack.

You will lead experienced engineers who work at the intersection of hardware firmware software systems and operations. The role is hands-on in the technical sense: you will not write production code every day but you should be comfortable going deep into architecture Linux and build environments debugging security boundaries integration problems and technical trade-offs alongside the team.

About this role:

Own the ESW and FPGA roadmap and technical direction across Lofts satellite platforms.
Define HW-abstraction architecture and interfaces across FPGA embedded software onboard software and operational layers.
Drive hardware-agnostic and reusable platform capabilities where they improve team independence and allow HW and technology to evolve.
Enable the ESW and FPGA leads through clear direction decision context coaching and removal of organizational or technical blockers.
Set expectations for architecture design reviews code quality testing verification documentation and operational readiness.
Build the core engineering foundation for Linux Yocto/OpenEmbedded CI/CD reproducible builds and secure or sovereign environments.
Guide technology choices involving hypervisors RISC-V Rust and other platform technologies when they create durable value.
Act as the face of ESW and FPGA and the triage point for company-wide technical issues dependencies and trade-offs.
Manage and develop geographically distributed leads and teams including hiring mentorship performance management and team health.
Represent the organization with customers partners and government or defense stakeholders when formal assurance and documentation are required.

Must Haves:

10 years of experience in embedded systems FPGA firmware or closely related engineering including delivery of mission-critical hardware or software.
Proven experience leading and managing technical teams including geographically distributed teams.
Deep experience with FPGA design embedded C/C real-time systems and HW/SW integration.
Experience designing HW abstractions and hardware-agnostic interfaces from both technical and architectural perspectives.
Strong Linux kernel and embedded Linux experience including low-level integration drivers boot or system debugging.
Strong Yocto/OpenEmbedded and CI/CD experience including build infrastructure automated testing and reproducible releases.
Experience building secure and sovereign environments including trust boundaries secure boot signing controlled dependencies or related security architecture.
Experience with hypervisors RISC-V ARM and Rust development environments.
Track record of making sound trade-offs across reliability performance security schedule and technology evolution.
Collaborative solution-minded leadership with the ability to enable leads manage people with empathy and accountability and act as a trusted cross-company technical representative.

Nice to Haves:

Experience with spacecraft avionics command and data handling (C&DH) payload interfaces or satellite flight systems.
Experience in New Space or satellite manufacturing particularly standardized modular or repeatable satellite platforms.
Experience with radiation-tolerant or radiation-hardened design and an understanding of the space environment.
Experience with real-time operating systems such as RTEMS FreeRTOS or VxWorks.
Experience with high-speed interfaces such as Ethernet SpaceWire SpaceFibre CAN PCIe USB or MIL-STD-1553.
Experience with ARM-based embedded systems U-Boot ARM Trusted Firmware device-tree overlays or secure boot implementation.
Experience contributing to upstream Linux or maintaining kernel modules platform drivers or low-level middleware.
Experience with hypervisor isolation virtualized I/O partitioning or mixed-criticality system design.
Experience using RISC-V or Rust in production platform tooling or security-sensitive environments.
Exposure to onboard AI/ML compute or edge-processing hardware.
Experience supporting government or defense programs with formal assurance security sovereignty and documentation requirements.

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

$195000 - $275000 a year

State law requires us to tell you the base compensation range for this role which is $195000- $275000 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 cantquantify 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 arent afraid to challenge assumptions. We strongly encourage you to apply even if you dont 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 Lofts 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.

Required Experience:

Director

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