Senior Avionics Hardware Development Engineer

Varda Space•El Segundo, CA

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Varda is developing commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing and reentry capsules. Its W-Series vehicles and associated payloads, capsules, heat shields, and satellite buses are designed, built, and operated in-house. The company is headquartered in El Segundo, California, and also has offices in Washington, DC, and Huntsville, Alabama. As a Senior Avionics Hardware Development Engineer, you will design and deliver flight-critical electrical hardware for Varda’s satellite bus, reentry vehicle, and customer payloads. You will own hardware in your domain from schematic capture through flight qualification: defining subsystem requirements from mission and company objectives, designing to those requirements, and ensuring manufactured systems meet them. You will also establish safe operating criteria and help mission operations assess the risks of operating near those limits. Varda tests components beyond expected flight conditions and investigates failures thoroughly.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
At least 5 years of direct experience designing electronics hardware—including schematic capture, PCB layout, board bring-up, and environmental qualification—for aerospace, automotive, or another high-reliability industry.
Demonstrated experience contributing to complex electronics systems from design through production or deployment.
Advanced PCB design expertise and knowledge of high-speed signal integrity, power and grounding, and electromagnetic compatibility.
Experience taking complex PCB designs through fabrication and assembly.
Expertise with 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 layers for multiple onboard and over-harness communication protocols, such as SPI, RS-422, and 1000BASE-T.
Experience designing analog and digital filtering and mixed-signal circuits.
Power electronics design experience, including load switches and switch-mode DC:DC converters.
Must meet the stated U.S. person requirement for access to export-controlled items: U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

Nice To Haves

Industry-leading electronic circuit design and analysis skills.
Strong general knowledge of physics, mathematics, and chemistry fundamentals relevant to designing electronics for unique environments.
Understanding of aerospace sensor and actuator technologies, including RTDs, pressure transducers, brushless motors, solenoid valves, thermocouples, stepper motors, and rotary or linear encoders.

Responsibilities

Design PCB-level electronics throughout the lifecycle, including schematic capture, layout, design validation, fabrication and assembly, and manufacturing test.
Support avionics architecture trade studies, analyses, performance characterization and specification, device selection, and roadmap direction.
Serve as the avionics subject matter expert for satellite, reentry vehicle, and payload hardware.
Support teams using the hardware, including GNC, pharmaceutical, mission operations, and integration teams.
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 on system-level integration test plans to verify hardware performance at the vehicle level.
Perform root-cause analysis on test failures and implement comprehensive mitigation strategies for flight risks.
Mentor junior engineers on projects, challenges, and design methodologies.