Director of Embedded Software & FPGA Engineering

The role

Lead the embedded software and FPGA engineering organization across Loft's satellite platforms. Define hardware abstraction architecture, the technical roadmap, and manage geographically distributed leads and teams.

What you will do

• Own the ESW and FPGA roadmap and technical direction across Loft's satellite platforms.
• Define HW-abstraction architecture and interfaces across FPGA, embedded software, onboard software, and operational layers.
• Drive hardware-agnostic and reusable platform capabilities.
• Enable ESW and FPGA leads through direction, coaching, and removal of blockers.
• Set expectations for architecture, design reviews, code quality, testing, verification, documentation, and operational readiness.
• Build the engineering foundation for Linux, Yocto/OpenEmbedded, CI/CD, reproducible builds, and secure or sovereign environments.
• Guide technology choices involving hypervisors, RISC-V, Rust, and other platform technologies.
• Act as the triage point for company-wide technical issues, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Manage and develop geographically distributed leads and teams, including hiring, mentorship, performance management, and team health.
• Represent the organization with customers, partners, and government or defense stakeholders.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in embedded systems, FPGA, firmware, or closely related engineering, including delivery of mission-critical hardware or software.
• Proven experience leading and managing technical teams, including geographically distributed teams.
• Deep experience with FPGA design, embedded C/C++, real-time systems, and HW/SW integration.
• Experience designing HW abstractions and hardware-agnostic interfaces.
• Strong Linux kernel and embedded Linux experience, including low-level integration, drivers, boot, or system debugging.
• Strong Yocto/OpenEmbedded and CI/CD experience, including build infrastructure, automated testing, and reproducible releases.
• Experience building secure and sovereign environments, including trust boundaries, secure boot, signing, controlled dependencies, or related security architecture.
• Experience with hypervisors, RISC-V, ARM and Rust development environments.
• Track record of making sound trade-offs across reliability, performance, security, schedule, and technology evolution.
• Collaborative, solution-minded leadership with the ability to enable leads, manage people with empathy and accountability, and act as a trusted cross-company technical representative.

Nice to have

• Experience with spacecraft avionics, command and data handling (C&DH), payload interfaces, or satellite flight systems.
• Experience in New Space or satellite manufacturing, particularly standardized, modular, or repeatable satellite platforms.
• Experience with radiation-tolerant or radiation-hardened design and an understanding of the space environment.
• Experience with real-time operating systems such as RTEMS, FreeRTOS, or VxWorks.
• Experience with high-speed interfaces such as Ethernet, SpaceWire, SpaceFibre, CAN, PCIe, USB, or MIL-STD-1553.
• Experience with ARM-based embedded systems, U-Boot, ARM Trusted Firmware, device-tree overlays, or secure boot implementation.
• Experience contributing to upstream Linux or maintaining kernel modules, platform drivers, or low-level middleware.
• Experience with hypervisor isolation, virtualized I/O, partitioning, or mixed-criticality system design.
• Experience using RISC-V or Rust in production, platform, tooling, or security-sensitive environments.
• Exposure to onboard AI/ML compute or edge-processing hardware.

Benefits

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision for you and your dependents
• 100% company-paid life, AD&D, and disability insurance
• Fully paid parental leave: 16 weeks for birthing parents, 10 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Flexible time off and 12 paid holidays
• HSA with employer contribution, FSAs, and commuter benefits
• Carrot Fertility, One Medical, and a free Employee Assistance Program
• 401(k) and equity
• Daily catered lunches and snacks in office
• Annual company off-site and regular social events
• International exposure to our team in France
• Relocation assistance when applicable

Before you apply

• Your resume will be reviewed by people across Loft's offices, so attach a copy in English.

About the company

Loft provides governments, companies, and research institutions with a fast, reliable way to deploy missions in orbit, integrating, launching, and operating spacecraft as an end-to-end service. The company has flown more than 30 missions and is scaling a fleet toward 30 satellites by 2027.