Jobs at Varda Space Industries

Manages hospitality operations across food and beverage outlets and catering services. Leads staffing, hiring, scheduling, training, performance management, customer service, events, inventory, quality control, and continuous improvement. Ensures compliance with food safety, sanitation, workplace safety, and regulatory standards while maintaining high-quality offerings and welcoming service environments. The role is on-site and supports multiple locations and operational needs.

Own supplier quality programs for propulsion or mechanical hardware suppliers. Evaluate supplier manufacturing capabilities, conduct audits, define inspection and acceptance criteria, provide DFM input, support supplier selection and product development, and resolve quality issues through root cause analysis and corrective actions. Collaborate with engineering, supply chain, and production teams while driving supplier continuous improvement and ensuring aerospace quality standards are met.

Perform flight safety analyses, failure-mode trajectory modeling, debris containment analysis, and vehicle-level FHA and FMEA. Develop FAA Part 450 regulatory strategies, methods of compliance, safety cases, and regulatory deliverables for launch and reentry authorizations. Establish safety limits and mission rules, support mission rehearsals and live recovery operations, and serve as the flight safety responsible engineer during on-console operations.

Lead mission safety and reentry compliance for spacecraft, including FAA regulatory strategy, safety cases, hazard and failure analyses, casualty and debris risk modeling, mission rules, regulatory deliverables, and live flight safety support during rehearsals and recovery operations.

Designs, builds, integrates, and maintains automated test systems and ground support equipment for spacecraft and flight hardware qualification. Responsibilities include electrical panel design, cabinet wiring, hardware integration, PLC and EtherCAT development, real-time control architecture, commissioning, and cross-functional delivery. The engineer owns systems end to end while supporting propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams in a fast-paced aerospace startup environment.

Designs, builds, commissions, and maintains automated mechanical test infrastructure and ground support equipment for spacecraft and propulsion hardware. Integrates mechanical, electrical, fluid, PLC, instrumentation, and data acquisition systems. Owns systems from concept through fabrication and operational support, ensuring high uptime and reliable performance. Partners with propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams while documenting systems and improving safety and maintainability.

Designs, builds, commissions, and maintains automated mechanical test infrastructure and ground support equipment for spacecraft and flight hardware. Integrates mechanical, electrical, fluid, instrumentation, PLC, and data acquisition systems. Owns systems from concept through ongoing production support, ensuring high uptime and predictable performance. Partners with propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams while documenting systems, procedures, and schematics.

Designs, builds, and maintains automated test systems and ground support equipment for spacecraft qualification and manufacturing. Integrates thermal, pressure, data acquisition, and instrumentation hardware; develops PLC frameworks and EtherCAT tooling; evaluates real-time control architectures; designs and wires electrical panels; commissions systems; and partners with propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams. The role owns control infrastructure end-to-end and establishes maintainable engineering standards.

Develop and maintain mission-critical spacecraft ground-segment software for telemetry, commanding, data distribution, mission-control interfaces, simulation, automated testing, CI/CD, observability, and deployments across lab, test, and mission environments. The role requires hands-on collaboration with flight software, avionics, RF and ground systems, and mission operations teams, including support for air-gapped and controlled networks.

Designs, integrates, verifies, and operates avionics systems for spacecraft through production and mission operations. Responsibilities include developing electrical architectures, analyzing faults and risks, creating mitigation and FDIR plans, building HITL testbeds, conducting system-level verification, supporting mission operations, and developing avionics ground infrastructure and test equipment. The role collaborates across engineering teams, supports test automation, resolves integration issues, and mentors junior engineers.

Develop and support safety-critical spacecraft flight software for satellite buses and reentry capsules. Responsibilities include requirements capture, design trades, C++ embedded software development, integration, testing, verification and validation, and flight operations support. The role involves bare-metal, RTOS, or Linux environments and requires collaboration on end-to-end spacecraft development and launch activities.

Develop and own precision fluid-handling payloads for pharmaceutical manufacturing in microgravity, from concept through design, analysis, integration, testing, launch, on-orbit operation, recovery, and iteration. Design valves, pumps, manifolds, tubing, seals, filters, sensors, and thermal-control systems; perform fluid, thermal, structural, and mechanism analyses; lead prototype and flight-hardware testing; define requirements and verification plans; coordinate cross-functional teams; and mentor junior engineers.

Designs and owns electromechanical payload hardware from concept through flight, reentry, and recovery. Responsibilities include mechanism, structural, thermal, fluid, and interface design; structural, thermal, and fluid analyses; prototype and flight-hardware testing; cross-functional integration; technical documentation; mission operations; and post-flight teardown. The role requires hands-on aerospace hardware development and collaboration across avionics, software, thermal, systems, and integration teams.

Lead the architecture, design, analysis, integration, testing, launch, recovery, and troubleshooting of complex electromechanical payload hardware for spaceflight and hypersonic reentry missions. Define requirements, verification plans, and development strategies; lead cross-functional teams and external partners; conduct trade studies and risk reduction; resolve anomalies; improve development processes; and mentor engineers.

Develop and own electromechanical payload hardware for spaceflight, hypersonic reentry, and pharmaceutical manufacturing missions. Lead mechanism, structural, thermal, fluid, and electromechanical design; perform analyses; build and test prototypes and flight hardware; coordinate cross-functional teams; manage requirements, documentation, mission operations, and post-flight teardown. The role requires delivering integrated hardware through launch and recovery while mentoring junior engineers and driving continuous improvement.

Lead the architecture, design, integration, testing, and qualification of precision electromechanical fluid systems for pharmaceutical manufacturing payloads in space. Responsibilities include requirements development, component selection, thermal and contamination control, system analysis, trade studies, prototype and flight hardware testing, verification planning, cross-functional technical leadership, stakeholder communication, continuous improvement, and mentoring engineers.

Own payload mission success from scoping through post-flight data delivery. Define payload-to-vehicle interfaces, manage integration and environmental testing, troubleshoot technical issues, coordinate vehicle testing and flight operations, support mission execution, and improve integration processes through lessons learned.

Leads launch vehicle interface definition and capsule recovery operations for Varda spacecraft. Manages launch service agreement deliverables, regulatory requirements, launch-site integration and testing, recovery procedures, anomaly investigations, technical trade studies, and coordination with launch providers and internal engineering teams. Builds and leads a team of launch and recovery engineers while scaling operations for more than 12 vehicles annually.

Lead technical authority for ground fluid systems across spacecraft programs: design, build, test, and operate propellant handling infrastructure; author standards and procedures; lead propellant loading campaigns; mentor engineers; represent ground fluids in cross-functional reviews and launch operations; drive roadmap and resolve complex technical issues.

Develops and maintains integrated master schedules for Varda’s W-Series space vehicles. Coordinates engineering, integration and testing, supply chain, and production plans; identifies critical paths and schedule risks; leads weekly updates and forecasts; supports baselines, re-baselining, change management, earned value metrics, schedule quality assessments, and process automation. The role partners with leadership and cross-functional teams to support recurring vehicle production and mission objectives.