Backend Engineering Intern: Ground Platform Control

Wanna join the adventure?

Loft Orbital is looking for a Backend Engineering Intern to join our Ground Platform, Control Team. The Control team owns the backend services that let Loft operators and customers command, monitor, and automate our satellite fleet through Cockpit, our mission control system. You'll help build and scale the microservices that sit between ground and flight software, turning high-level intent into safe, reliable on-orbit operations. Our team sits in the middle of Flight Software, Satellite Operations, and Test teams, giving you the chance to learn about the full end-to-end systems that go into launching and operating a satellite mission. If you're excited about building backend systems that directly control satellites — and you like the idea of both shipping code and helping fly missions — we'd love to hear from you.

Location: Toulouse office, city center (Jeanne d’Arc metro station)
Duration: 6-month, end-of-studies internship — target start date: early 2027.

About this role:

Your task will be to design and develop a control investigation API which will assist operators with investigations and enable the automation of standard investigations into failed commanding and lack of telemetry. This will be a valuable step towards reliable and scalable operations of our fleet. The project will require you to work closely with our satellite operators to learn about common failure cases, as well as our space infrastructure, to understand how it can best be used to automate investigations.

Must Haves:

• An engineering background (e.g. Computer Science, Physics, Aerospace) with a desire to do back-end software engineering.
• Python experience.
• Comfortable working in English: the Control team works across the US and France, so it's essential you can communicate well in English.
• A desire to work in a diverse, international team.
• Good communication skills.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience with Docker and container-based development.
• Knowledge of space systems and/or an understanding of satellite operations.
• Hands-on experience with backend web development frameworks (e.g., Django, Flask, FastAPI, etc.).
• Database fundamentals.
• Knowledge of front-end engineering practices and frameworks.

Challenge:

As part of the interview process, you may be asked to write a short Python notebook to demonstrate your coding approach and problem‐solving mindset.

What Can We Offer?

You will join the Ground Platform Control team and work on backend systems with direct application to Loft's satellite operations, under the mentorship of our engineers — with the possibility of a full-time hire after the internship if all goes well. With a growing fleet on track to reach 30 satellites by 2027, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, USA | Golden, USA | and Toulouse, France.

Some of our awesome internship benefits:

• Gratification: €1,300 gross/month.
• Lunch vouchers (tickets restaurant), because let's be honest, we love food! (we even have a Slack channel about it: #loft-gourmand)
• Sustainable mobility package (forfait mobilité durable).
• A genuinely international environment comprising 20+ different nationalities.
• A genuine mentoring program to support you on a daily basis throughout the internship.

 *Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other underrepresented people tend to only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications. At Loft, we value respectful debate and people who aren’t afraid to challenge assumptions.  We strongly encourage you to apply, even if you don’t check all the boxes.

Who We Are

Loft: Space Made Simple. 

Founded in 2017, Loft provides governments, companies, and research institutions with a fast, reliable, and simple way to deploy missions in orbit.

We integrate, launch, and operate spacecraft, offering end-to-end missions as a service across Earth observation, IoT connectivity, on-orbit AI, national security missions, and more. Leveraging our existing space infrastructure and an extensive inventory of satellite buses, Loft is reducing years-long integration and launch timelines to months. With more than 30 missions flown, Loft’s flight heritage and proven technologies enable customers to focus on their mission objectives.

With a growing fleet on track to reach 30 satellites by 2027, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, CA | Golden, CO | and Toulouse, France to meet accelerating demand for space infrastructure.

As an international company your resume will be reviewed by people across our offices so please attach a copy in English.

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