Wanna join the adventure?
As a Senior Ground Segment Engineer, you play a pivotal role in building software to operate our fleet of in-orbit satellites, and to prepare for the challenges associated with operating different satellite buses in a variety of configurations. Your expertise will be instrumental in ensuring reliable, efficient, and scalable connectivity between our growing fleet of satellites via both ground stations and inter-satellite links.
You will configure Cockpit, Loft’s mission control system, to expand our ground segment connectivity, working with our ground station providers and the product teams that build Cockpit. You will manage cross-fleet contact allocation and planning, optimizing resource usage to maximize communication opportunities and minimize latency. Work closely with our Space Infrastructure, Spacecraft Deployment, Mission Deployment and Execution, and regulatory teams to manage commissioned satellites and prepare for the commissioning of new ones. This position will also give you the opportunity to become a rotating Flight Director, responsible for the health and safety of our satellite fleet.
There is opportunity for growth in this position. Your expertise in network infrastructure will be crucial in ensuring the reliability of our global satellite network, enabling us to deliver exceptional service to our customers. This role offers a broad scope to work on different aspects of satellite connectivity and play a significant part in shaping the future of satellite operations at Loft.
About this role:
Participate in the design and implement Loft’s network architecture ; cloud networking, VPN/site-to-site, segmentation, and routing across offices, ground stations, and test equipment
Tighten the network security posture : segmentation, access, and connectivity hardening
Manage the network as code : IaC provisioning, CI/CD, and GitOps
Define SLOs for connectivity and ground-station availability, and own the observability (metrics, logs, tracing) that measures them; Grafana-centric stacks a plus
Investigate and resolve reliability issues with root-cause analysis and durable fixes; reduce operational toil through automation
Contribute to the SRE team’s broader reliability and incident-response work, fostering the SatDevOps culture that power Loft’s DNA
Must haves:
4–5 years in network engineering , with deep hands-on networking: routing, VPN/site-to-site, segmentation, DNS, firewalling
Hands-on Software-Defined Networking : comfortable managing networks programmatically / as code rather than appliance-by-appliance (everything we run is IaC )
Strong public-cloud networking experience, ideally GCP (VPCs, peering, hybrid connectivity)
Comfortable operating on a Kuburnetes platform (k8s, Docker) and occasionally writing code
Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform or similar) and a CI/CD-driven, GitOps workflow
An SRE mindset : SLOs, observability, and reducing toil through automation
Ability to debug connectivity issues in a complex, hybrid network environment
Degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
Nice to haves:
Network certifications ( CCNP or similar)
Hands-on experience with GitOps frameworks (ArgoCD, FluxCD)
Interest or experience in FinOps and cost-optimized architectures
Familiarity with security practices : vulnerability scanning, threat detection, risk mitigation
Understanding of orchestration in resource-constrained environments , like space systems
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 )
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.