Software Engineer - Simulations (III)

Lodestar • Los Angeles, CA

10d • $136,000 - $250,000

About The Position

Lodestar is hiring a mid-senior-level Simulations Software Engineer to build and maintain the environment used to develop, test, and validate its MITHRIL autonomy stack. The simulator is a critical component for proving that autonomy behaviors are reliable before flight.

The engineer will develop high-fidelity sensor and environment models in Unreal Engine, including electro-optical cameras and orbital lighting and illumination. They will build software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop test benches for flight software, design distributed services for reproducible mission scenarios across machines and in CI, and own internal simulation tooling, telemetry, and regression frameworks. The role works directly with perception, prediction, decision, and missions teams to determine what should be simulated and at what fidelity. Lodestar describes its engineering culture as oriented around “extreme ownership.”

Applicants must meet applicable U.S. space-technology export-control requirements: be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required U.S. Department of State authorizations. Compensation bands are $136,000–$200,000 per year at P3 and $175,000–$250,000 per year at P4. Individual level and base pay are determined case by case. Full-time hires may also be eligible for stock options and medical, vision, and dental coverage, as well as access to a 401(k) plan.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.
• At least 6 years of industry experience, including end-to-end ownership of a simulation stack or major simulation subsystem.
• Track record architecting simulation infrastructure and making and defending modeling-fidelity trade-offs with engineering stakeholders.
• Depth in real-time distributed system design, including determinism, time synchronization, clock management, and reproducibility across nodes.
• Experience establishing HIL benches or SIL pipelines from scratch, including CI integration and automated regression testing.
• Experience mentoring engineers and setting technical direction across team boundaries.
• Comfort deriving requirements from first principles.
• Must meet the stated U.S. ITAR eligibility requirements.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with orbital mechanics and Basilisk.
• Experience with physics engines and rigid-body dynamics.
• Sensor modeling experience across electro-optical, LIDAR, RADAR, or RF sensors.
• Experience with GPU rendering pipelines or CUDA for accelerated simulation and synthetic data generation.
• Exposure to robotics or space simulation frameworks such as Gazebo, Isaac Sim, Basilisk, or 42.
• Experience with distributed transports such as DDS, Zenoh, or gRPC and time-synchronization protocols such as PTP or NTP.
• Experience with Linux, Git, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Comfort with containerization and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong understanding of networking and communication protocols for distributed autonomy systems.
• Strong expertise in one or more of orbital dynamic simulation, 3D game engines, or distributed simulation architecture (ROS2).

Responsibilities

• Build and extend the mission simulation environment used to develop and validate Lodestar’s autonomy stack.
• Develop high-fidelity sensor and environment models, including electro-optical cameras and orbital lighting and illumination.
• Build software-in-the-loop and hardware-in-the-loop test benches to trial flight software against realistic simulated missions.
• Design distributed simulation services for running mission scenarios at scale.
• Own internal simulation tooling, telemetry, and regression frameworks.
• Work with perception, prediction, decision, and missions teams to determine simulation needs and fidelity.

Benefits

• Meaningful equity incentives through the employee option pool.
• Flexible PTO with generous paid vacation, holidays, and sick leave.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match.
• Full-time hires may be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of stock options and access to medical, vision, dental, and 401(k) benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level