Principal Space Avionics Hardware Development Engineer
About The Position
Varda is developing commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing and reentry capsules. Its W-Series vehicles and related payloads, capsules, heat shields, and satellite buses are designed, built, integrated, tested, and operated in-house. Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, and also has offices in Washington, DC, and Huntsville, Alabama. In this role, you will architect and design flight-critical electrical hardware for Varda’s satellite bus, reentry vehicle, and customer payloads. Example systems include flight computers, satellite power systems, and sensors used for navigation and pharmaceutical manufacturing. You will translate mission and company objectives into subsystem requirements, design hardware to meet them, and verify that manufactured systems do so. You will also define safe operating criteria and support mission operations in assessing risks when hardware is operated near the limits of those criteria. Varda stresses components beyond expected flight conditions and investigates failures thoroughly.
Requirements
- Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
- At least 8 years of direct experience designing electronics hardware—including schematic capture, PCB layout, board bring-up, and environmental qualification—for aerospace, automotive, or other high-reliability industries.
- At least 3 years of experience working directly on hardware for space applications.
- Demonstrated experience owning the architecture and implementation of complex electronics systems from design through production or deployment.
- Advanced PCB design expertise, including knowledge of high-speed signal integrity, power and grounding, and electromagnetic compatibility.
- Experience taking complex PCB designs through fabrication and assembly.
- Expertise using Altium and/or KiCad EDA suites.
- Strong hands-on laboratory experience with electronic test equipment, including oscilloscopes, function generators, benchtop digital multimeters, and power supplies.
- Experience programming in Python, MATLAB, or another scripting or data-analysis language.
- Demonstrated experience implementing hardware for multiple onboard and over-harness communication protocols, such as SPI, RS422, and 1000BASE-T.
- Experience designing analog and digital filters and mixed-signal circuits.
- Power electronics design experience, including load switches and switch-mode DC:DC converters.
- Understanding of aerospace sensor and actuator technologies, including RTDs, pressure transducers, brushless motors, solenoid valves, thermocouples, stepper motors, and rotary or linear encoders.
- Must be a U.S. person permitted to access the company’s export-controlled technology without an export license. The posting defines this as a U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
Nice To Haves
- Industry-leading electronic circuit design and analysis skills.
- Strong supporting knowledge of physics, mathematics, and chemistry fundamentals relevant to designing electronics for unique environments.
Responsibilities
- Design PCB-level electronics across the lifecycle, including schematic capture, layout, design validation, fabrication and assembly, and manufacturing test.
- Contribute to avionics architecture and system design for next-generation vehicles and hardware upgrades to existing vehicles.
- Help define standards, processes, and procedures for electrical engineering at Varda.
- Translate company and mission objectives into subsystem requirements, designs, and development milestones.
- Serve as an avionics subject matter expert for satellite, reentry vehicle, and payload hardware.
- Support the Varda GNC, pharmaceutical, mission operations, and integration teams that use the hardware.
- Collaborate with flight software, thermal, GNC, structures, and other cross-functional teams to assess vehicle-wide impacts of design decisions.
- Own product acceptance and qualification testing for space environments, including thermal, vibration, shock, TVAC, and EMI testing, with support from the Avionics Test team.
- Provide direction for system-level integration test plans that verify hardware performance at the vehicle level.
- Conduct root cause analysis of test failures and implement mitigation strategies for flight risks.
- Mentor junior engineers on projects, challenges, and design methodologies.
Benefits
- Long-term incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
