---
title: 'Backend Software Engineer - Mission Planning Strategy at Loft Orbital Solutions'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/backend-software-engineer-mission-planning-strategy-loft-orbital-solutions-f9j78mczgyw8'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-10'
---

# Backend Software Engineer - Mission Planning Strategy at Loft Orbital Solutions

- **Company:** Loft Orbital Solutions
- **Location:** Toulouse, France
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-11-09
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/loftorbital/2ea9ab3f-15b9-4b1b-9a69-d8a22e54e587

## Job description

Wanna join the adventure? Loft Orbital is looking for a Backend Software Engineer to join theMission Platform organization. You'll work on a small and driven team, developing a brand new software product that optimizes tasking across a large heterogeneous constellation of multi-sensor satellites: scale to fly 50+ satellites, serving 100,000s of customer tasking orders design, build and optimize a brand new product from scratch solve challenging problems across multiple domains: Astrodynamics, satellite capacity modeling and simulation Back-end/API performance Low latency, high responsiveness system design Mathematical optimization and scheduling problems We're looking for someone with a solid background in software engineering, ideally with a proven track record of building systems from scratch and solving complex, system-level problems. The ideal candidate can operate independently in a fast-paced environment and challenge requirements.

About this role:

- Develop and improve a new software product that manages customer orders across a multi-sensor constellation of satellites
- Interface with teams to help design the customer-facing interfaces and the back-end pipeline that goes from a plan to onboard execution
- Build tools and services that help sales and operators understand current and future capacity, operational risks and opportunities for growth
- Solve complex multi-objective optimization problems that maximize collection capacity, balancing various (conflicting) customer constraints, and help define what “optimal” means
- Design systems of systems: decompose complex problems into well-bounded services with clear interfaces, and reason about how they interact, fail, and scale together

Must Haves:

- Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Physics/Astrodynamics, Mathematics or a related field
- 2+ years of experience with designing and developing software libraries and backend services, preferably in Python
- Proven track record of operating independently and solving complex problems
- Experience with system design
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, for technical and non-technical audiences

Nice to Haves:

- Master’s degree in Software Engineering, Physics/Astrodynamics, Mathematics or a related field
- 5+ years of experience designing and developing software libraries and backend services, preferably in Python
- Proficiency with Django/GraphQL stacks
- Hands-on experience operating spacecraft
- Experience with C++ / high-performance Python (vectorization, JIT compilation like Numba, GPU parallelization)
- Demonstrated practical experience building high-performance backend software applications and/or libraries
- Specialization in one of the following disciplines:
- Integer/linear/multi-objective optimization or other Operations Research style problems
- Back-end/API performance optimization
- Distributed systems
- Security
- Earth observation tasking
- High-performance computing

Some of Our Awesome Benefits:

- 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](https://loftorbital.slack.com/archives/C02G64537DF))
- 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

*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.

## About Loft Orbital Solutions

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Loft Orbital is a space infrastructure company that provides simple, fast, and reliable ways for customers to deploy and operate physical payloads and software missions in low Earth orbit.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C – $170M round announced, total funding $326.9M)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (with additional offices in Golden, Colorado and Toulouse, France)
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Not listed in provided sources

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing
- **Target Customers**: B2B – commercial space startups, established aerospace and defense primes, cloud and AI companies, and government agencies worldwide (including U..S, France, Canada)
- **Mission/Purpose**: “Space Made Simple” – enabling customers to focus on their mission while Loft handles end-to-end space infrastructure

## Products & Services
- **Physical Payload Missions**: Loft integrates, tests, launches, and operates customer hardware payloads on its standardized satellite platforms (e.g.., optical, hyperspectral, RF sensors).
- **Virtual / Software-Only Missions**: Customers can deploy software directly to Loft’s on-orbit satellites to process and analyze data in near-real time (e..g., AI edge processing via partners like SkyServe, SSCI).
- **YAM (Yet Another Mission)** satellites: A fleet of multi-mission satellite buses available for rapid deployment; Loft maintains an inventory of pre-assembled platforms.
- **Hub & Cockpit**: Proprietary hardware and software abstraction layers that simplify payload integration and satellite operations.
- **Loft Federal**: A FOCI-mitigated division focused on US national security space missions (only US citizens).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (total funding $326..9M – LinkedIn)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding $326..9M (8 rounds incl. $170M Series C); Annual Revenue estimated $27..8M (LinkedIn)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lead seed investor Uncork Capital; partners include Honeywell (Canadian Space Agency mission), Wyvern (Dragonette constellation), Esper, Helsing, SmartSat CRC, EarthDaily ($150M constellation), SkyServe, SSCI, Airbus OneWeb Satellites (15 bus order).
- **Growth Signals**: 270 employees (+14.9% YoY), 41k+ LinkedIn followers (+41.4% YoY), 14 satellites launched, 60+ customers, 15+ AI missions on-orbit, selected as prime contractor for France’s first space-based radar imaging program.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Standardized Satellite Platform**: Uses a commodity satellite bus with custom hardware/software layers, eliminating non-recurring engineering and enabling “turnkey” plug-and-play.
- **Speed to Orbit**: Maintains an inventory of pre-assembled buses and pre-booked launches, drastically reducing lead times compared to traditional aerospace.
- **Flight Heritage**: Over 600 copies of the bus in orbit today, providing proven reliability
- **Misson Agnosticism**: Can fly any payload that fits within standard platform constraints; supports both physical and virtual missions.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expand AI Edge Computing**: Deploying onboard AI processing (e..g., STORM from SkyServe, POET experiment for SDA) to enable near-real-time decision making.
- **National Security Growth**: Loft Federal continues to win US government contracts.
- **Constellation Scale-Up**: Partnering with EarthDaily for $150M satellite constellation; ordering 15 additional buses from Airbus OneWeb.
- **International Partnerships**: Strengthening ties with France (prime contractor for radar imaging) and Canada (SmartSat CRC, Honeywell).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Collaborative, respectful, professional environment described as “non-negotiable.” Rated 4..5/5 on LinkedIn (35 reviews) with Culture 4.5, Compensation 4.1, Work-Life 3.6, Career 4.2.
- **Wor Environment**: Distributed team with core hubs in San Francisco, Golden (CO), and Toulouse. Supports remote collaboration but roles may require on-site presence (per job listings). Recruiting process involves intro call, technical screening, challenge, and hiring panel.
- **Notable Perks**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge space infrastructure with a fast-growing company; involvement in both commercial and government missions; international team.

## Sources
1. [loftorbital..com](https://loftorbital.com/)
2. [loftorbital.com/about/](https://loftorbital.com/about/)
3. [loftorbital.com/careers/](https://loftorbital.com/careers/)
4. [jobs.lever.co/loftorbital](https://jobs.lever.co/loftorbital/)
5. [linkedin.com/company/loft-orbital](https://www.linkedin.com/company/loft-orbital)

## Other roles at Loft Orbital Solutions

- [RF Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/rf-systems-engineer-loft-orbital-solutions-toulouse-gwpn3wxts9s9) — Toulouse, France
- [Supply Chain Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/supply-chain-manager-loft-orbital-solutions-toulouse-9bcfstmwf1eb) — Toulouse, France
- [Backend Software Engineer - Mission Planning Strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/backend-software-engineer-mission-planning-strategy-loft-orbital-solutions-san-pmks17ddsmzr) — San Francisco, CA
- [Backend Software Engineer - Mission Planning Strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/backend-software-engineer-mission-planning-strategy-loft-orbital-solutions-pwfzrtcnjns4) — Golden, CO
- [Test Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/test-infrastructure-engineer-loft-orbital-solutions-abu-dhabi-9x89derscm3h) — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- [Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiter-loft-orbital-solutions-abu-dhabi-j99jtzc3dfh0) — Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- [Team Lead - Cloud Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/team-lead-cloud-infrastructure-loft-orbital-solutions-golden-x0y06qb309yy) — Golden, CO
- [Team Lead - Cloud Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/team-lead-cloud-infrastructure-loft-orbital-solutions-toulouse-4y85f61d1kgq) — Toulouse, France
- [Flight Dynamics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/flight-dynamics-software-engineer-loft-orbital-solutions-san-francisco-85fedp0gws5q) — San Francisco, CA
- [Flight Dynamics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/flight-dynamics-software-engineer-loft-orbital-solutions-golden-fw71kqvqkfcs) — Golden, CO