Team Lead, Cloud Infrastructure

Description

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.

Requirements

• 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:
• Equity, we want you to have an active role in our success
• Up to 35 days of Paid Time Off (vacations & RTT ) and flexible working hours, we want you to be at your best
• Health and life insurance, we care about your health
• Lunch Vouchers, because let’s be honest, we love food! (we even have a slack channel about it loft-gourmand )
• Cross-office travel opportunities between San Francisco, Colorado, and Toulouse to learn from our differences
• Company and team off-sites and many other events to work & celebrate together
• Relocation assistance to Toulouse 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.
• 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.