Product Systems Engineer

Wanna join the adventure?

Loft Orbital builds a space infrastructure providing a fast & simple path to orbit. Using different flight proven buses, we design, integrate and operate spacecraft to fly physical or virtual customer payloads. We handle entire missions end to end, significantly reducing the lead-time and risk of a traditional space mission.

As a Product Systems Engineer at Loft, you will work at the intersection of software architecture, systems engineering, and product - contributing to the coherence of our overall offering across ground, space, software, and hardware. You will help define how capabilities are structured and allocated across segments, and how customers, third-party software, and Loft's own stack interact.

This is a role for someone who wants to go deep on technically complex problems that span the full stack. You will work across ground processing, customer-facing tooling, and interface definition - contributing to architecture decisions, maintaining requirements and ICDs, and helping ensure the offering evolves in a consistent and product-relevant way. You will collaborate closely with engineering, product, and operations teams across sites to turn technical ambiguity into clear frameworks for implementation.

About this role:

• Define and own the integrated-level system design for the Hub
• Take ownership of the development of selected capabilities across the Hub product scope
• Translate high-level concepts into actionable technical specifications for modular subsystems
• Lead and coordinate requirements, traceability, future-proofing, CONOPS, ICDs, trade studies, risk topics, and design reviews
• Follow hardware, qualification, flight software, ground software, and operational procedure development through the product lifecycle
• Monitor reviews and development progress to ensure technical decisions, requirements, and actions are being captured and closed appropriately
• Ensure requirements are clearly defined, well allocated, and properly verified against the intended CONOPS and product objectives
• Check validation plans, verification logic, and test results to maintain overall quality and consistency during development
• Ensure modular components are designed and integrated to deliver a cohesive and scalable system
• Partner with hardware and software teams to ensure clean interfaces and effective integration between components
• Collaborate with Product Management to refine product boundaries and technical direction
• Provide guidance on key technical decisions and help align teams around a common technical direction
• Create and maintain system design and interface documentation including ICD, IRD, and CONOPS material
• Help maintain product quality and technical coherence from development into production and operational use

Must Haves:

• Strong systems engineering background in complex technical products spanning software and hardware
• Experience working at the boundary between architecture definition, requirements structuring, and engineering implementation
• Proficiency in software architecture, networking protocols, embedded systems, and integration strategies
• Ability to structure complex systems into clear capabilities, interfaces, requirements, and responsibilities
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional technical efforts and align diverse teams toward a common goal
• Strong communication and documentation skills, including the ability to distill technical ambiguity into a clear framework for decisions and execution
• Experience designing modular systems with standardized interfaces across power, data, mechanical, and thermal domains
• Sound engineering judgment on the right level of rigor, abstraction, and specification for a growing organization

Nice to Haves:

• Experience with modular system design and integration using a building-block approach
• Experience developing reusable, scalable products in a technical leadership role
• Familiarity with satellite communication protocols including RF and/or optical links
• Familiarity with onboard data processing and cloud-based ground segment software for mission operations
• Understanding of aerospace standards and best practices
• International and cross-site engineering experience

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 in office
• International exposure to our team in France
• Fully paid parental leave; 14 weeks for birthing parent and 10 weeks for non-birthing parent
• 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

$145,000 - $195,000 a year

State law requires us to tell you the base compensation range for this role, which is $145,000- $195,000 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 can't quantify 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 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.

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.