Team Lead - Cloud Infrastructure

Wanna join the adventure?

Loft Orbital is revolutionizing access to space by building reliable, shareable satellites that drastically reduce the time and complexity traditionally required to get to orbit. We operate satellites, fly customer payloads, and handle entire missions from end-to-end. We’re a close-knit team of space enthusiasts, software experts, and cutting-edge technologists, all working together to make space simple for our customers.

As a passionate and experienced Team Lead for our Cloud Infrastructure Team, you will play a mission-critical leadership role, you will oversee a dynamic group of cloud engineers responsible for building and maintaining the cloud-based ground segment that powers our rapidly expanding constellation of satellites.

You will set the technical direction, foster collaboration across teams, champion DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) best practices, and directly contribute to our mission of making access to space fast, simple, and reliable.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who thrives in high-growth environments, enjoys technical challenges at scale, and is passionate about mentorship, reliability, and innovation.

About this role:

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of highly skilled cloud infrastructure engineers.
• Own and run daily team operations, including standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sync meetings to ensure clear priorities, high execution velocity, and smooth communication.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, continuous learning, psychological safety, and collaborative problem-solving.
• Define and communicate the team's mission, vision, and goals aligned with Loft Orbital’s broader business objectives.
• Champion a DevOps/SRE mindset across the company, promoting ownership of reliability, scalability, and security.
• Set and drive the cloud infrastructure strategy, ensuring systems are secure, scalable, and cost-effective.
• Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of multi-cloud solutions (AWS, GCP, Azure) supporting highly reliable satellite operations.
• Champion Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), cloud automation, observability, and continuous integration/delivery pipelines.
• Establish and maintain best practices for incident management, disaster recovery, monitoring, and alerting.
• Lead cloud cost optimization efforts, balancing innovation with operational efficiency.
• Partner closely with Software Engineering, Security, Satellite Operations, and Mission teams to ensure our ground infrastructure meets mission-critical requirements.
• Influence architecture and operational processes across teams to align with infrastructure and reliability goals.
• Drive Agile delivery practices within the Cloud Infrastructure Team and support broader engineering initiatives.

Must Haves:

• Proven leadership experience managing and scaling high-performing cloud infrastructure or SRE teams.
• Hands-on experience running team ceremonies (daily standups, sprint planning, backlog grooming, retrospectives) and ensuring effective Agile practices.
• Agile project management experience, delivering complex infrastructure projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong expertise in public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP preferred) and cloud-native technologies.

Hands-on experience with:

• Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform)
• Kubernetes and container orchestration
• CI/CD tools and pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, ArgoCD)
• Observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki)
• Strong background in automation, scripting (Python, Go, or similar), and modern DevOps practices.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills; able to work effectively with engineers, product managers, and leadership.
• Experience managing cloud security and compliance considerations.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience in a highly regulated industry (e.g., aerospace, defense, critical infrastructure).
• FinOps experience managing cloud cost visibility and optimization strategies.
• Hybrid infrastructure (cloud and on-prem) management experience.
• Prior work with Satellite Operations, Mission Planning, or Space Systems Engineering.
• Familiarity with GitOps methodologies (ArgoCD, Flux).

Some of Our Awesome Benefits:

• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance option for employees and dependents
• Flexible Spending (FSA) and Health Savings (HSA) Accounts offered with an employer contribution to the HSA
• 100% employer paid Life, AD&D, Short-Term, and Long-Term Disability insurance
• Flexible Time Off policy for vacation and sick leave, and 12 paid holidays
• 401(k) plan and equity options
• Daily catered lunches and snacks
• International exposure to our team in France
• Fully paid parental leave; 14 weeks for primary caregiver and 10 weeks for secondary caregiver
• Carrot Fertility provides comprehensive, inclusive fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits with financial support
• Off-sites and many social events and celebrations
• Relocation assistance when applicable

*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.

State law requires us to tell you the base compensation range for this role, which is $190,000 - $255,000 per year, determined by your education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. The salary range for this role is intentionally wide as we evaluate individuals based on their unique experience and abilities to fit our needs. Most importantly, we are excited to meet you, and see if you are a great fit for our team. What we can’t quantify for you are the exciting challenges, supportive team, and amazing culture we enjoy.