Avionics Software Engineer United Kingdom

Lodestar'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 a single unified platform, we deliver an end-to-end, autonomous in-space body guarding service.

We’re hiring Avionics Software Engineers across three technical focus areas:
Flight Software, Distributed Middleware & Embedded Linux Depending on your experience, you’ll take ownership of one of these areas while working closely across avionics, autonomy, AI/ML, and hardware.

Within our Avionics Software team, we’re hiring multiple engineers across three core technical specialisms. Please identify which role best matches your skills and experience:

• Design and develop deterministic, safety-critical, fault tolerant flight software for autonomous spacecraft.
• Build robust software for RTOS-based flight computers, implementing FDIR and defensive programming techniques.
• Collaborate with autonomy, AI, and hardware engineers to integrate, test, and validate mission-critical software on representative spacecraft platforms.

• Develop the distributed middleware enabling communication, workload orchestration, and telemetry across heterogeneous onboard compute systems.
• Build resilient software infrastructure including high-performance IPC, networking, process supervision, and fail-safe Over-The-Air (OTA) update mechanisms.
• Deliver scalable software platforms that support fault-tolerant autonomous operations.

• Develop and maintain custom embedded Linux platforms for NVIDIA Jetson-backed flight computers, from board bring-up through to deployment.
• Optimise kernel performance through real-time tuning, low-level driver development, system profiling and selective kernel slimming.
• Architect a hardened, minimal-footprint Linux-based operating system.

The following qualifications are desired across all three roles:

• BEng/MEng in Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• Strong foundation in C++.
• Experience developing software for embedded systems using Linux or RTOS (e.g., RTEMS, FreeRTOS).
• Solid understanding of multi-process architectures and inter-process communication.
• Strong communicator and self-starter; able to work independently and in a collaborative team.
• Demonstrated skills in debugging and performance characterisation.

Desired skills and experience relevant to the three roles:

• Good understanding of communication protocols.
• Familiarity with containerisation and deployment tools (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes).
• Deep understanding of Linux kernel architecture, bootloaders (e.g. U-Boot), and low-level system bring-up.
• Understanding of fault-tolerant design principles, error handling, or defensive programming in resource-constrained systems.
• Experience with real-time Linux kernel tuning.
• Background with the space industry.
• Experience with publish-subscribe middle wares.
• Exposure to fail-safe Over-The-Air (OTA) update frameworks.
• Demonstrated strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven experience in system integration and working with multidisciplinary teams.
• Pay Range:
  • (E1) Junior Engineer: £30,000 - £55,000 / year
  • (E2) Mid-level Engineer: £55,000 - £75,000 / year
• Meaningful equity incentives as part of our employee option pool
• Contributory pension
• Be part of a scrappy, dynamic, multidisciplinary, collaborative crew

For security reasons background checks will be undertaken prior to any employment offers being made to an applicant. These checks will include nationality checks as it is a requirement of this position that you be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by the United States' International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Under these Regulations, you…