Senior Spacecraft Avionics Hardware Development Engineer
About The Position
As a Senior Spacecraft Avionics Hardware Development Engineer at Varda, you will design and deliver flight-critical electrical hardware for the satellite bus, reentry vehicle, and customer payloads, owning your hardware domain from schematic capture through flight qualification. You will define subsystem requirements based on mission and company objectives, design to those requirements, and ensure manufactured systems meet them. You will also establish safe operating criteria for the hardware and support mission operations in assessing the risks of operating near those limits. The role covers PCB-level electronics throughout the product lifecycle, avionics architecture and hardware development, and support for teams that use the hardware. You will work across disciplines to assess vehicle-level impacts of design decisions, own acceptance and qualification testing for space environments, and guide system integration testing. Varda emphasizes testing components beyond expected flight conditions and thoroughly investigating failures. This is an on-site role in El Segundo, California. Candidates must be U.S. persons authorized to access the company’s export-controlled technology.
Requirements
- B.S. 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 other high-reliability industries.
- 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 be a U.S. person authorized to access export-controlled items, as defined in the posting.
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 an avionics subject matter expert for satellite, reentry vehicle, and payload hardware.
- Support 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 determine vehicle-system impacts of design decisions.
- Own product acceptance and qualification testing for space environments, including thermal, vibration, shock, TVAC, and EMI, with support from the Avionics Test team.
- Provide direction for 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.
Benefits
- Eligibility for 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
Senior
