{"id":878831,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-iiiiii-simulations","title":"Software Engineer I,II,III: Simulations","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":"2026-09-26T05:45:00Z"}},"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":99000,"max":133000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":133000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":6,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"Gazebo","optional":false},{"name":"Isaac Sim","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"ROS","optional":false},{"name":"Unity","optional":false},{"name":"Unreal Engine","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":true},{"name":"CUDA","optional":true},{"name":"CUDA Toolkit","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"gRPC","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"ROS2","optional":true},{"name":"Synthetic Data","optional":true},{"name":"Zenoh","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-07T12:20:48Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-22","last_verified_at":"2026-09-27T04:03:29Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":19,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":19},"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\nAt Lodestar, as a Software Engineer: Simulation, 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.\nYou'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.\nWe proudly have an \"extreme ownership\" oriented engineering culture.\nWhat You’ll Do\nBuild and extend the mission simulation environment that Lodestar's autonomy stack is developed and validated against\nDevelop high-fidelity sensor and environment models - electro-optical cameras, orbital lighting and illumination\nBuild software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop test benches so that flight software can be trialed against realistic simulated missions \nDesign distributed simulation services to run mission scenarios at scale\nOwn the internal simulation tooling, telemetry, and regression frameworks\nBasic Qualifications\nWe are hiring this role at three levels. 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.\nSoftware Engineer I\n0-2 years of professional experience in simulation, robotics, games. Can also include Internships and research placements.\nWorking proficiency in C++ and Python\nExposure to ROS 2 in an academic, research, or professional setting\nUnderstanding of multithreading fundamentals - threads, synchronization primitives, race conditions\nFamiliarity with 3D game engines (Unreal Engine or Unity) or comparable physics and graphics simulation tooling\nComfortable developing in Linux and with containerised workflows (Docker)\nSoftware Engineer II\n2-5 years of industry experience building simulation, robotics, or games.\nStrong modern C++ (C++17 or later) alongside Python\nProduction experience with ROS 2 - node design, DDS middleware, message passing, launch and configuration management\nHands-on SIL and/or HIL experience: building test harnesses and integrating real vehicle or flight software against simulated sensors and actuators\nExperience with Unreal Engine for sensor or environment simulation, or equivalent depth in Unity, Isaac Sim, or Gazebo\nExperience designing distributed services - inter-process communication, message transport, and orchestration across multiple machines\nDemonstrated multithreaded and concurrent programming in a real-time or soft-real-time context\nSoftware Engineer III\n6+ years of industry experience, including end-to-end ownership of a simulation stack or a major simulation subsystem\nTrack record architecting simulation infrastructure - deciding what to model at what fidelity, and defending those trade-offs to engineering stakeholders\nDepth in real-time distributed system design: determinism, time synchronisation, clock management, and reproducibility across nodes\nExperience standing up HIL benches or SIL pipelines from scratch, including CI integration and automated regression testing\nExperience mentoring engineers and setting technical direction across team boundaries\nComfortable deriving requirements from first principles\nPreferred Skills & Experience\nFamiliarity with orbital mechanics and Basilisk \nExperience with physics engines and rigid-body dynamics\nSensor modelling experience across electro-optical, LIDAR, RADAR, or RF sensors\nExperience with GPU rendering pipelines or CUDA for accelerated simulation and synthetic data generation\nExposure to robotics or space simulation frameworks such as Gazebo, Isaac Sim, Basilisk, or 42\nExperience with distributed transports (DDS, Zenoh, gRPC) and time-synchronisation protocols (PTP, NTP)\nExperience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines\nComfortable with containerisation and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes\nStrong understanding of networking and communication protocols for distributed autonomy systems\nCandidates should have strong expertise in any or all orbital dynamic simulation, 3D game engines, or distributed simulation architecture (ROS2).\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\nOur full band structure for this role:(P1) Entry: $99,000 - $133,000 / year\n(P2) Developing: $115,000 - $174,000 / year\n(P3) Career: $136,000 - $200,000 / year\n(P4) Senior: $175,000 - $250,000 / 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":6808,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":6,"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 & Aerospace"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-13T22:59:16Z"}],"liveness":{"score":37,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.673,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":18,"expected_fill_days":17,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-09-26T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":133000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-iiiiii-simulations","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lodestarspace-software-engineer-iiiiii-simulations.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-27T05:30:45Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4834,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":166,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-09-28T00:00:00Z"}}}