Product Manager

Wanna join the adventure? Loft's AI for Space group is building the stack that runs real machine learning in orbit; turning raw sensor data into decisions on the satellite itself, so insight reaches the customer in minutes instead of hours. The AI Engineering team is where models meet the spacecraft. We own the full path from a partner's trained model to something that actually runs — fast — on flight hardware: compiling ONNX models into optimized engines for each accelerator, the Space Inference Engine and its execution providers, the SDK that packages models for flight, and the perf tooling that proves a model fits its power, thermal, and latency budget before it ever leaves the ground. As we open the platform to a growing roster of defense and Earth-observation partners, the team's scope and the range of silicon we target are expanding fast.

As our ML Runtime Engineer, you'll own model compilation and the performance tooling behind it. We're looking for someone scrappy — the kind of engineer who takes an unfamiliar model and an unforgiving power budget, digs into the graph, and gets it running on real hardware without waiting for the path to be handed to them. You'll move between model compilation, runtime internals, quantization, and hardware-in-the-loop CI, sometimes in the same afternoon.

About this role: Understand what is possible, and turn it into requirements

Spend the bulk of your time with engineering: understanding architectures, constraints, and dependencies well enough to judge what is realistically doable in a given timeframe.

Translate strategic direction into clear requirements and use cases that engineering can act on directly, and follow them down to the Jira tickets.

Surface and shape the good ideas that come from engineering — many of the best ones do — and connect them to a product rationale.

Define success criteria for each capability, and verify they are actually met through implementation and delivery.

Maintain an accurate, shared view of Loft's product capabilities, what is in development, and where the gaps are.

Bring the outside in

Run customer discovery interviews alongside business development, and debrief missions to see how Loft's capabilities are actually used in operations.

Engage directly with the partners building on our platform, including the onboard AI application ecosystem, to understand their needs and constraints.

Track market trends and competitive moves closely enough to know where our offering stands.

Decide and prioritize

Own the roadmap for your perimeter, reconciling customer needs, engineering reality, and Loft's strategy into a single coherent plan.

Build the analysis behind every recommendation — sizing, segmentation, business cases, operational data — so decisions are grounded in evidence rather than intuition alone.

Negotiate scope and delivery commitments with engineering leadership, and re-plan when capacity or mission timelines shift.

Challenge, constructively and with data, business development, engineering leadership, and your own assumptions.

Communicate

Own internal communication on your perimeter: keep engineering, program leadership, and executives working from the same technical reality.

Develop the technical narratives and proof points that marketing and BD then turn into their own customer-facing material.

Prepare recommendations and presentations for top-executive-level audiences.

Must Haves: 7+ years of professional experience, including hands-on product management.

Domain experience in at least one of: earth observation, embedded systems, aerospace systems, security & defense.

Comfort at both ends of the spectrum — understand the market, and the technology

Structured and data-driven: you bring your experience and your intuitions, but when you put a recommendation on the table you can show the analysis it stands on.

Real product obsession: you think about the bigger picture and product-market fit before you think about features.

Relentless curiosity. In a single month you might move from a satellite bus constraint, to onboard AI inference, to a defense accreditation requirement — and you need to find that stimulating rather than exhausting.

High autonomy and a bias for action: handed a broad perimeter, you organize it yourself and come back with a plan.

At ease being challenged, and challenging others, in a fast-moving and demanding environment.

Working knowledge of both hardware and software development lifecycles.

Proficient using and configuring Atlassian tools (Jira and Confluence).

Fluency in English, written and spoken.

Willingness to travel to other Loft offices and to customers.

Nice to Haves: Fluency in French.

Experience with AI/ML products, edge computing, or developer and partner platforms and ecosystems.

Experience with satellite operations, constellation services, or ground segment products.

Exposure to institutional and defense customers and their procurement cycles.

Experience in a fast-growing, entrepreneurial NewSpace company or venture-backed deep-tech startup.

Professional experience working with international teams across time zones.

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

*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.