Onboard Autonomy Software Engineer – Real-Time Decisions

Lodestar; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 115,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity incentives

Flexible PTO

401(k) retirement plan

Medical coverage

Job summary

Lodestar is hiring a Software Engineer II - On-board Autonomy to craft decision-making systems for autonomous spacecraft. You will build models that evaluate mission context, capabilities, and environmental conditions to suggest actions and execute them in real time.

The role emphasizes bridging perception, prediction, and control to enable resilient operation in uncertain, low-bandwidth environments. An ownership-driven culture supports innovation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/ML/Robotics or equivalent experience.
• 2+ years of industry experience in autonomy, decision-making, or control systems for aerospace/robotics.
• Strong proficiency in C++ and Python and DL frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Experience applying ML to decision-making or control problems.
• Track record in optimal control, planning, or RL in real-time systems.
• Familiarity with multi-agent decision-making or planning under uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement on-board decision-making models that adapt strategies in real time.
• Develop autonomous decision algorithms integrating perception, state estimation, and intent prediction.
• Research and implement ML models for decision making from literature review to training and deployment.
• Implement decision models that adapt to changing mission context and environment.
• Develop frameworks for continuous re-evaluation of active strategies for resilience under uncertainty.
• Support real-time autonomy in communications-limited or time-critical scenarios.
• Build and maintain autonomy infrastructure, testing frameworks, and deployment pipelines.

Skills

C++

Python

DL frameworks

Autonomy

Robotics

Aerospace experience

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/ML/Robotics

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Git

Job description

Lodestar is hiring a Software Engineer II - On-board Autonomy to craft decision-making systems for autonomous spacecraft. You will build models that evaluate mission context, capabilities, and environmental conditions to suggest actions and execute them in real time.

The role emphasizes bridging perception, prediction, and control to enable resilient operation in uncertain, low-bandwidth environments. An ownership-driven culture supports innovation.