{"id":3541496,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii","title":"Software Engineer: Perception (II,III)","company":{"id":716996,"name":"Lodestar","domain":"lodestar.space","url":"https://alion.io/company/lodestar-2","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Los Angeles, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":115000,"max":174000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":174000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":2,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"Digital Twin","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"OpenCV","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"CUDA","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"Linux","optional":true},{"name":"TensorRT","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-08-25T15:29:44Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-30","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T18:50:39Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":439,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":438},"description":"About Lodestar\nLodestar's mission is to develop the first \"Protect and Defend\" capability for high-value space assets in orbit. Our flagship product MITHRIL is 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 integrating MITHRIL as a single platform, we deliver a fully autonomous end-to-end protection spacecraft service.\nAbout the Job\nAs aSoftware Engineer II/III - Perception at Lodestar, you’ll be joining the perception and machine vision teams to rapidly grow our vision and perception models at MITHRIL’s center. \nYou'll help build and refine algorithms that detect, classify and understand unknown space targets in real time. Working alongside senior perception engineers, you'll combine computer vision, image processing and machine learning to develop the custom models that underpin autonomous decision-making in complex and uncertain space environments.\nThis is an mid-career role. We're looking for strong fundamentals and fast learning, and you'll be given real ownership early with the support to grow into it.\nWe proudly have an \"extreme ownership\" oriented engineering culture.\nWhat You’ll Do\nContribute to the perception system at the core of Lodestar's autonomy software suite\nWork through the full lifecycle of perception algorithms alongside senior engineers including literature review, training, evaluation, optimisation and deployment\nBuild on and optimise our existing models for edge computing, and develop new components with guidance from the perception leads\nHelp develop and test our methods for predicting the relative pose of dynamic space targets in harsh and unpredictable visual environments\nIntegrate perception models into mission simulation environments and real-time autonomy pipelines\nContribute to the design of realistic sensor models and digital twins to improve perception fidelity in mission scenarios\nMaintain and extend our perception tooling, model training infrastructure, and evaluation frameworks\nCollaborate across the autonomy, estimation, and mission software teams to support perception fidelity, performance, and scalability\nBasic Qualifications\nSolid software engineering skills in Python, and working proficiency in C++\nFoundational DNN/ML knowledge and hands-on experience with computer vision or image processing libraries (e.g. OpenCV)\nBachelor's or Master's degree in AI/ML, Computer Science, Robotics, a related field, or equivalent experience\n2-5 years of professional experience in machine learning, robotics, computer vision, or a related field. Internships, research placements, and substantial academic or personal projects all count\nDemonstrated ability to take an ML model from training through to evaluation, in any setting - coursework, research, or industry\nBroad understanding of modern perception systems and their architecture\nExposure to sensor measurements from RADAR, electro-optical sensors, RF sensors, and/or LIDAR\nExperience developing or deploying ML models to real-time or resource-constrained systems\nPreferred Skills & Experience\nFamiliarity with image processing techniques (e.g. feature extraction, segmentation, filtering, stereo matching) to support 3D reconstruction and target classification\nExperience optimising neural networks or geometric algorithms using CUDA kernels, TensorRT, or other GPU acceleration frameworks\nExposure to distributed training or cloud-based scaling of ML models (AWS, GCP, or Azure)\nExperience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines\nComfortable with containerisation tools such as Docker and Kubernetes\nUnderstanding of networking and communication protocols for distributed autonomy systems\nITAR Requirements\nTo 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.\nCompensation & Benefits\nPay Range for this role:(P2) Developing: $115,000 - $174,000 / year\n(P3) Career: $136,000 - $200,000 / year\n\nMeaningful equity incentives as part of our employee option pool\nFlexible PTO with generous paid vacation, holidays, and sick leave\nComprehensive medical, dental & vision coverage\n401(k) retirement plan with company match\nLos Angeles\nAdditional Information\nCompensation 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.\nLodestar 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5511,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":2,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Retirement plans","Stock options"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Space Services","Defense AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-30T19:24:38Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":5,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.18,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":438,"expected_fill_days":53,"reasons":["conf:3","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":174000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-07T21:03:16Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":33729,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-08T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":716996},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=716996"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Flodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Flodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Flodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/lodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flodestar-software-engineer-perception-iiiii"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3541496}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"lodestar.space","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3541496},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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