{"id":878833,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy","title":"Software Engineer II: On-board Autonomy","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":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"}},"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":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch C++","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow C++","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"Linux","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-08-25T15:20:40Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-22","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T11:35:08Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":413,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":413},"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 our hardware-agnostic, AI-enabled autonomy software suite that enables us 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 into single unified platform, we deliver an end-to-end, autonomous in-space superiority service.\nAbout the Job\nAt Lodestar, as a Software Engineer II - On-board Autonomy, you’ll be developing the decision-making systems at the heart of Lodestar’s autonomy suite. You’ll focus on creating algorithms that evaluate mission context, system capabilities, and environmental conditions to recommend and execute optimal actions. These models adapt dynamically to changing conditions, enabling real-time autonomous decision-making even in communications-limited or uncertain environments. Your work will bridge perception, prediction, and control, allowing spacecraft to operate intelligently, efficiently, and resiliently across complex mission scenarios.\nWe proudly have an \"extreme ownership\" oriented engineering culture. \nWhat You’ll Do\nDesign and implement on-board decision-making models that recommend and adapt strategies in real time\nDevelop autonomous decision algorithms that integrate information from perception, state estimation, and intent prediction models to execute mission objectives\nResearch and implement ML models for decision making - everything from lit. review, through training, to deployment\nImplement decision models that adapt dynamically to changing mission context, environmental conditions, and system status\nDevelop frameworks for continuous re-evaluation of active strategies to ensure resilient and adaptive behavior under uncertainty\nSupport real-time autonomy in communications-limited or time-critical scenarios\nBuild and maintain autonomy infrastructure, testing frameworks, and deployment pipelines for space missions\nBasic Qualifications\nBachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Robotics, a related field, or equivalent experience\n2+ years of distinguished industry experience in autonomy, decision-making, or control systems for aerospace/robotics\nStrong proficiency in C++ and Python and DL frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow)\nDemonstrated experience with machine learning applied to decision-making or control problems\nTrack record with optimal control, planning, or reinforcement learning in real-time systems\nFamiliarity with multi-agent decision-making or planning under uncertainty\nPreferred Skills & Experience\nTrack record implementing autonomy applications in real-time or safety-critical environments\nExperience integrating perception and prediction outputs into decision frameworks\nFamiliarity with resource-aware strategy selection and optimization under uncertainty\nBackground in reinforcement learning, hierarchical planning, or adaptive control\nExperience with distributed training and cloud-based scaling of ML models (AWS, GCP, or Azure)\nExperience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines\nComfortable with containerization tools such as Docker and Kubernetes\nFamiliarity with real-time systems, multi-threading, and performance optimization\nStrong understanding of distributed autonomy, networking, and communication protocols\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:(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\nLA\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":5140,"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":false,"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":"2026-09-13T22:59:16Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":4,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.15,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":413,"expected_fill_days":19,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":174000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T13:19:06Z","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":20544,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"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%2Flodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy"},{"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%2Flodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy"},{"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%2Flodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy"},{"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/lodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flodestarspace-software-engineer-ii-on-board-autonomy"}]}