Sr. Edge Compute Software Engineer
Loft Orbital
Software Engineering
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 180k-250k / year + Equity
Posted on Nov 20, 2025
Wanna join the adventure?
You will contribute to the development, integration, and optimization of Loft’s Ultimate Edge SDK, which provides unified compute capabilities across various embedded platforms. Your primary focus will be on NVIDIA Orin–based systems, while also assessing portability and performance on additional hardware targets.
Your mission will include:
- Integrating ONNX-based inference runtimes and image-processing frameworks (e.g., ONNX Runtime, OpenCV) into Loft’s SDK.
- Configuring and optimizing GPU-accelerated and heterogeneous runtime environments, ensuring efficient use of available resources.
- Profiling, benchmarking, and performance tuning across multiple embedded platforms.
- Collaborating with other teams in Loft to ensure smooth deployment of edge applications.
- Supporting the continuous improvement of Loft’s onboard compute stack through structured testing, documentation, and validation.
Your work will directly contribute to flight software robustness, system performance, and future onboard computing capabilities for Loft missions.
About this Role:
- Integrate and optimize runtime components (ONNX Runtime, OpenCV, etc.) within the Ultimate Edge SDK.
- Develop, configure, and tune GPU-accelerated pipelines on NVIDIA hardware.
- Benchmark and profile workloads to assess performance, portability, and resource usage.
- Support application deployment in real-time, embedded, and constrained environments.
- Contribute to documentation, validation, and continuous integration of runtime components.
Must Haves:
- Master-level background in embedded systems, computer engineering, AI/ML, or software engineering.
- Solid experience with C++ and/or Python.
- Familiarity with Linux-based embedded environments.
- Understanding of ML inference frameworks (ONNX Runtime, TensorRT, etc.).
- Strong experience with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and exposing processing capabilities or services from containerized workloads
- Experience with hardware-accelerated processing (e.g., GPUs, TPU...) to optimize performance for compute-intensive workloads.
- English communication skills (written & verbal) for international collaboration.
Nice to Haves:
- Experience with the NVIDIA ecosystem: CUDA, Orin, Jetson platforms.
- Knowledge of heterogeneous compute environments and optimization.
- Exposure to runtime systems, GPU scheduling, or edge computing.
- Interest in space technologies and autonomous onboard processing.
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 flexible 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, in-orbit demonstrations, 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 25 missions flown, Loft’s flight heritage and proven technologies enable customers to focus on their mission objectives.
At Loft, you’ll be given the autonomy and ownership to solve significant challenges, but with a close-knit and supportive team at your back. We believe that diversity and community are the foundation of an open culture. We are committed to hiring the best people regardless of background and make their time at Loft the most fulfilling period of their career.
We value kind, supportive and team-oriented collaborators. It is also crucial for us that you are a problem solver and a great communicator. As our team is international, you will need strong English skills to better collaborate, easily communicate complex ideas and convey important messages.
With 4 satellites on-orbit and a wave of exciting missions launching soon, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, CA | Golden, CO | and Toulouse, France.
As an international company your resume will be reviewed by people across our offices so please attach a copy in English.
State law requires us to tell you the base compensation range for this role, which is $180,000- $250,000 per year. This is determined by your education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. The salary range for this role is intentionally wide as we evaluate individuals based on their unique experience and abilities to fit our needs. Most importantly, we are excited to meet you, and see if you are a great fit for our team. What we can’t quantify for you are the exciting challenges, supportive team, and amazing culture we enjoy.