Flight Dynamics Software Engineer
Loft Orbital Solutions1 day ago
Base Salary
$175k - $210k/yr
Responsibilities
- Implement and improve algorithms for orbit determination, orbit propagation, maneuver planning, conjunction assessment, collision avoidance, and attitude modeling.
- Contribute to open-source astrodynamics tooling used for flight operations and simulation.
- Develop and maintain backend applications that compute, store, and serve ephemerides, maneuvers, conjunctions, and target orbits.
- Interface with systems and mission engineers to translate technical requirements and customer demands into operational outcomes.
- Support satellite operations engineers with astrodynamics expertise during LEOP, anomalies, and conjunction response.
- Configure the software stack for customer missions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in physics or an engineering discipline.
- Deep technical understanding of orbital mechanics, state estimation, spacecraft maneuver planning, conjunction assessment, and/or spacecraft attitude modeling.
- Fundamentals of numerical methods, including solvers, optimization, and simulation techniques.
- Experience designing and developing software libraries and backend services, preferably in Python.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Preferred: master’s degree in physics or engineering.
- Preferred: proficiency with STK, Astrogator, GMAT, OreKit, Monte, Copernicus, OpenSpaceToolkit, or equivalent astrodynamics tools.
- Preferred: practical spacecraft constellation flight-dynamics operations experience.
- Preferred: practical experience building high-performance backend software applications and/or libraries.
Benefits
- Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance options for employees and dependents.
- Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts, including an employer HSA contribution.
- Employer-paid life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance.
- Flexible Time Off, including vacation and sick leave, plus 12 paid holidays.
- 401(k) plan and equity options.
- Daily catered lunches and snacks.
- International exposure to the team in France.
- Paid parental leave of 14 weeks for primary caregivers and 10 weeks for secondary caregivers.
- Carrot Fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits with financial support.
- Off-sites, social events, and celebrations.
- Relocation assistance when applicable.
About Loft Orbital Solutions
Loft Orbital Solutions builds standardized satellite platforms and delivers end-to-end missions as a service for governments, companies, and research institutions. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, the privately held firm integrates, launches, and operates spacecraft to deploy Earth observation, IoT connectivity, on‑orbit compute, and national security payloads in months. Loft has flown more than 30 missions, using hardware and software abstraction layers atop commodity satellite buses.