Engineer - HIL (Hardware in the Loop)

At Loft Orbital, we have just successfully launched multiple satellites that we fly and operate ourselves. With these satellites on-orbit and a wave of exciting missions launching soon, we are scaling up quickly as a global company.

We are looking for a Hardware in the Loop Engineer to be part of the team building and maintaining all of Loft’s test benches internationally, across our San Francisco, CA, Golden, CO and Toulouse, France sites.

As a Hardware in the Loop Engineer, you will primarily help design, develop and deploy our test infrastructure and the tools for automating both our hardware and software testing, that will help us scale as a company. Sitting between the spacecraft and all the other teams, you will have a big impact in ensuring that every element of our satellite work without any bugs. We are looking for engineers with a product mindset, who have a good grasp on software engineering principles and experience with setting up software infrastructures. Additionally, we are looking for someone who is:- Able to work independently with some guidance. People owning their work is important to us!- Able to wear multiple hats as needs arise. We are a small company disrupting an entire industry!- Not afraid to get out of their comfort zone to explore and learn. Technologies are evolving at rapid rates, and we must stay relevant!

Our culture at Loft Orbital promotes collaboration and ownership to our developers, fostering efforts hand to hand with other teams, internally and externally.

Wanna join the adventure?

*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 the role:

• Designing, developing, and deploying our Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test benches that emulates spacecraft avionics, enabling comprehensive testing
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to understand and meet their testing needs, ensuring the platform is flexible and easy to use.
• Maintaining and supporting the HIL infrastructure, ensuring high availability and reliability for continuous integration and testing.

Must-haves:

• 5+ years of working on Linux, networking
• Hands-on experience involving embedded hardware, such Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, microcontrollers, or similar (can be personal or professional experience)
• Experience debugging issues with Linux system management (systemd, networkd, file system etc.)
• Understanding VLANs, OSI layers, tracing packets from one source to another, TCP dump/wireshark, UDP vs. TCP
• Proficient in Python (>=3.9) experience
• Understanding of how to create, configure, and manage Docker containers
• Experience with one or more continuous integration tools

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience setting up Gitlab CI/CD pipelines
• Experience setting up automated hardware in the loop (HIL) test benches
• Experience using Kubernetes