Backend Engineer - Mission Operations Services

About the role

Mission Operations Services (MOS) owns the backend services that let Loft operators and customers command, monitor, and automate our satellite fleet through Cockpit, our mission control system. You’ll help build and scale the microservices that sit between ground and flight software, turning high-level intent into safe, reliable on-orbit operations. You’ll work across multiple satellite platforms and collaborate closely with backend, flight software, embedded systems, test, and satellite operations teams.

Responsibilities

• Design and build backend tools for operations: services that power passes, autopilots, activities, and day-to-day satellite operations
• Handle commands and telemetry across multiple satellite buses and ground segment providers, with a strong focus on safety, robustness, and observability
• Write production backend code in Python, owning services end-to-end from design and implementation through deployment and maintenance
• Collaborate with flight software, embedded software, integration and test, and space infrastructure teams to integrate new satellite buses and capabilities into Cockpit
• Support internal users of Cockpit (operators, test engineers, solutions engineers) by improving APIs, workflows, and debugging tools
• Take part in spacecraft operations through SatDevOps rotations, occasionally helping investigate anomalies and supporting real-time incident response when needed

Requirements

Must Haves:

• 4+ years of relevant backend software engineering experience in production environments
• Solid Python development experience in a production environment
• Hands-on experience with backend web development frameworks (e.g., Django, Flask, FastAPI, etc.)
• Proven API design skills (designing, documenting, and maintaining HTTP/GraphQL/REST-style APIs)

Qualifications

• Experience with Docker and container-based development
• Strong database fundamentals and practical experience (e.g., Postgres, time-series DBs)
• Familiarity with Kubernetes in production
• Exposure to InfluxDB / TimescaleDB or other time-series systems
• Background in mission-critical, distributed, or real-time systems (space or otherwise)

Skills

Not specified

Benefits

Not specified

Pay

Not specified

Schedule

Not specified

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.