Software Engineer - Perception

About Lodestar

Lodestar's mission is to develop the first "Protect and Defend" capability for high-value space assets in orbit. Our flagship productMITHRILis the critical hardware & software necessary to augment any off-the-shelf spacecraft with the ability to autonomously detect, characterise, and reversibly neutralise orbital threats. By building on the proven space heritage of our best-in-class satellite-bus partners and fully integratingMITHRILas a single platform, we deliver a fully autonomous end-to-end protection spacecraft service.

About the Job

As aSoftware Engineer - Perceptionat Lodestar, you’ll be joining the perception and machine vision teams to rapidly grow our vision and perception models atMITHRIL’scenter. You’ll focus on researching and building algorithms to detect, classify and understand unknown space targets in real-time. By combining computer vision, image processing and machine learning, you’ll develop custom models - providing the foundation for autonomous decision-making in complex and uncertain space environments.

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

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What You’ll Do

• Scoping architecture for the perception system core to Lodestar’s autonomy software suite
• Research and adapt novel perception algorithms - everything from lit. review, through training and evaluation, to optimisation and deployment
• Design, develop ML algorithms from the ground up, in addition to build on and optimizing our existing models for edge computing
• Further develop our robust methods for predicting relative pose of dynamic space targets in harsh and unpredictable visual environments
• Integrate perception models into mission simulation environments and real-time autonomy pipelines
• Contribute to the design of realistic sensor models and digital twins to improve perception fidelity in mission scenarios
• Own perception tooling, model training infrastructure, and evaluation frameworks for ongoing development and deployment
• Collaborate across autonomy, estimation, and mission software teams to ensure perception fidelity, performance, and scalability

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Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in, AI/ML, Computer Science, Robotics, a related field, or equivalent experience
• 2+ years of distinguished industry experience in Machine Learning, robotics, computer vision, or a related field
• Excellent software engineering skills in C++ and Python
• Strong DNN/ML background and experience in CV and image processing libraries (OpenCV, CUDA-accelerated vision, PCL)
• Broad understanding of modern perception systems and their architecture
• Experience developing and deploying ML models to real-time systems

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience processing sensor measurements from a variety of sensors including RADAR, electro-optical sensors, RF sensors, or LIDAR
• Familiarity with image processing techniques (e.g., feature extraction, segmentation, filtering, stereo matching) to support 3D reconstruction and target classification
• Track record optimizing neural networks and geometric algorithms using CUDA kernels, TensorRT, or other GPU acceleration frameworks
• Experience with distributed training and cloud-based scaling of ML models (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Experience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines
• Comfortable with containerization tools such as Docker and Kubernetes
• Strong understanding of networking and communication protocols for distributed autonomy systems

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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 ITARhere.

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Compensation & Benefits

• Pay Range:
  • (E1) Junior Software Engineer: $115,000 - $140,000 / year
  • (E2) Software Engineer: $140,000 - $180,000 / year
  • (E3) Senior Software Engineer: Competitive
• 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 or San Francisco

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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 theform of stock options, and access tomedical, vision and dental coverage, as well asaccess 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.