Software Engineer - Simulations (III)

About Lodestar

Lodestar is the software-first space prime for the hardware abundant era. We believe the next generation of space systems will be defined not by launch, fuel, and batteries, but by software, compute, and autonomous effects.

Space is becoming an increasingly contested warfighting domain, with growing threats to the satellites and critical infrastructure underpinning modern life. Maintaining Western strategic advantage will require a new generation of space capabilities built for the speed, complexity and scale of future conflict.

Lodestar is addressing this challenge by building superintelligent spacecraft capable of operating autonomously in orbit. Combining our capabilities in advanced adversarial tracking & characterisation, onboard edge compute and autonomous effect delivery, our technology enables spacecraft to execute complex rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), detect and classify objects, predict intent and respond to orbital threats - even in denied environments. By integrating sensing, reasoning and action into a single autonomous system, we aim to deliver decisive situational awareness and space superiority for defence and commercial operators.

Backed by elite deep-tech venture capital, international space agencies and government stakeholders, Lodestar is rapidly expanding its footprint across the U.S. Space Force, the Department of War, and major commercial satellite operators. We are a lean, high-autonomy team of engineers and operators building the space defense infrastructure of tomorrow.

Join us.

About the Job

At Lodestar, as a Simulations Software Engineer, you'll build the environment in which MITHRIL is developed, tested and proven. Every autonomy behaviour we fly is validated in simulation first, which makes the simulator one of the highest-leverage pieces of software in the company: if it isn't faithful, nothing downstream can be trusted.

You'll develop high-fidelity sensor and environment models in Unreal Engine, stand up the software- and hardware-in-the-loop benches that our flight software runs against, and design the distributed services that let scenarios run reproducibly across machines and in CI. You'll work directly with the perception, prediction, decision, and missions teams to decide what needs simulating, at what fidelity, and why.

We proudly have an "extreme ownership" oriented engineering culture.

What You’ll Do

• Build and extend the mission simulation environment that Lodestar's autonomy stack is developed and validated against
• Develop high-fidelity sensor and environment models - electro-optical cameras, orbital lighting and illumination
• Build software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop test benches so that flight software can be trialed against realistic simulated missions 
• Design distributed simulation services to run mission scenarios at scale
• Own the internal simulation tooling, telemetry, and regression frameworks

Basic Qualifications

We are hiring this role at mid-senior level. All levels require a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.

• 6+ years of industry experience, including end-to-end ownership of a simulation stack or a major simulation subsystem
• Track record architecting simulation infrastructure - deciding what to model at what fidelity, and defending those trade-offs to engineering stakeholders
• Depth in real-time distributed system design: determinism, time synchronisation, clock management, and reproducibility across nodes
• Experience standing up HIL benches or SIL pipelines from scratch, including CI integration and automated regression testing
• Experience mentoring engineers and setting technical direction across team boundaries
• Comfortable deriving requirements from first principles

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Familiarity with orbital mechanics and Basilisk 
• Experience with physics engines and rigid-body dynamics
• Sensor modelling experience across electro-optical, LIDAR, RADAR, or RF sensors
• Experience with GPU rendering pipelines or CUDA for accelerated simulation and synthetic data generation
• Exposure to robotics or space simulation frameworks such as Gazebo, Isaac Sim, Basilisk, or 42
• Experience with distributed transports (DDS, Zenoh, gRPC) and time-synchronisation protocols (PTP, NTP)
• Experience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines
• Comfortable with containerisation and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes
• Strong understanding of networking and communication protocols for distributed autonomy systems

Candidates should have strong expertise in any or all orbital dynamic simulation, 3D game engines, or distributed simulation architecture (ROS2).

ITAR Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Compensation & Benefits

• Our full band structure for this role:
  • (P3) Career: $136,000 - $200,000 / year
  • (P4) Senior: $175,000 - $250,000 / year

• Meaningful equity incentives as part of our employee option pool
• Flexible PTO with generous paid vacation, holidays, and sick leave
• Comprehensive medical, dental & vision coverage
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match
• Los Angeles

Additional Information

Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of stock options , and access to medical, vision and dental coverage, as well as access to a 401(k) retirement plan.

Lodestar is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Lodestar is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.