Director, Space Infrastructure
Loft Orbital
Other Engineering
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 180k-250k / year
Posted on Feb 24, 2026
Wanna Join the Adventure?
Loft Orbital is building a new leadership role to take full ownership of Space Infrastructure across our growing fleet. This is a high-impact position responsible for the reliability, scalability, and long-term evolution of our satellite and network operations. You will define strategy, lead execution, and grow the teams and systems that keep our satellites operating at scale. With full accountability for infrastructure availability and customer mission SLAs, you will translate operational insight into company-level strategy, automation roadmaps, and product improvements.
If you are excited by owning complex, distributed systems in a fast-scaling space environment - and leading teams through high-stakes decision-making - this role is for you.
About the Role:
- Own Loft’s Space Infrastructure, including satellite connectivity (ground stations, ISL, network infrastructure) and Space Ops Coordination (SatDevOps)
- Define and drive the long-term strategy and roadmap for scalable, automated fleet operations
- Lead and develop Flight Directors, SatCons, and Space Infrastructure teams, including capacity planning, training, and career development
- Own infrastructure availability and reliability SLAs, ensuring customer missions are rarely impacted by infra issues
- Drive incident management, anomaly triage, post-incident reviews, and long-term corrective actions
- Increase automation and abstraction layers to reduce manual operations and operator-driven anomaly resolution
- Lead DevOps-style deployment and testing improvements to enable faster, safer software releases across the fleet
- Oversee global network operations and external partnerships (e.g., ground station providers)
- Serve as the primary cross-functional interface for Software Solutions, Onboard Software, Systems Engineering, Product, and Customer Delivery on space infrastructure topics
- Ensure operational constraints are integrated early into program lifecycles and product architecture
- Define, track, and communicate KPIs to leadership and customer-facing teams; drive data-informed reliability improvements
- Contribute to long-term system architecture and explore forward-looking infrastructure evolution
Must Haves:
- 8+ years of experience leading satellite operations, space infrastructure, ground systems, or large-scale distributed technical systems
- Strong technical grounding in at least one of: satellite operations, network infrastructure, software systems, or DevOps - with the ability to lead across all
- Demonstrated success scaling operations to support fleet growth
- Proven track record improving reliability and resilience of complex systems
- Experience owning incident response, anomaly resolution, and operational process design
- Ability to deliver against multi-quarter roadmaps while balancing near-term operational demands with long-term automation goals
- Strong cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to translate technical trade-offs to executives and stakeholders
- Comfort making high-stakes decisions in time-critical, information-limited environments
- Experience leading and developing multidisciplinary teams
Nice to Haves:
- Experience operating in a high-growth or rapidly scaling space company
- Experience managing external vendors and strategic infrastructure partnerships at scale
- Exposure to regulatory and compliance environments relevant to satellite operations (FCC, international licensing, spectrum coordination, etc.)
- Background spanning satellite operations, systems engineering, software development, and DevOps
- Experience strengthening training programs and reducing baseline operational knowledge through automation
- Experience influencing product and architecture decisions through operational feedback loops
- Experience leading distributed or international teams.
Who We Are:
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.
180000 - 250000 USD a year
State law requires us to share the posted base compensation range for this role. Final compensation will be determined based on your education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. The salary range is intentionally broad to account for differences in experience and scope, as well as geographic market variations in pay. We evaluate each candidate individually to ensure alignment between their background, the role’s responsibilities, and local market benchmarks. 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.