Senior Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer

Varda Space•El Segundo, CA

12h•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer is responsible for Varda’s critical ground segment software and the platform that supports spacecraft operations. The role spans telemetry and commanding, data acquisition and distribution, mission-control interfaces, simulation and test automation, and reliable deployment across laboratory, test-range, and mission-operations environments. The engineer works hands-on with flight software, avionics, RF and ground systems, and mission operations.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, physics, engineering, or equivalent technical experience in safety-critical software.
At least 5 years of experience developing spacecraft or similar safety-critical software.
Expertise developing in Python and a strong understanding of Python language concepts.
Strong systems fundamentals, including concurrency, networking, performance, and reliability.
Experience building real-time data acquisition, scaling, and distribution services, including low-latency messaging and time-series and relational data stores.
Hands-on experience with CI/CD, dependency and build systems, and infrastructure-as-code.
End-to-end observability experience, including logging, metrics, and tracing.
Experience with Docker/Kubernetes, release management, phased rollouts, and operational readiness for controlled networks.
Must qualify as a U.S. person under the definition provided in the posting, due to access to export-controlled items.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency in C++, Ansible, and/or NiceGUI.
Experience with data acquisition and closed-loop control in laboratory or test-control environments.
Prior work on CI, testing, simulation, or data tools integrated with flight-software teams.
Experience with requirements, testing, and certification artifacts in safety-critical or certified workflows.
Knowledge of ground-systems standards and security in mission networks.
Experience building mission-grade UIs with structured command workflows, alarming, and situational awareness.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain high-reliability ground-segment services for telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding, with deterministic behavior for real-time operations and post-flight analysis.
Build operator-grade mission-control UIs and dashboards that improve operational efficiency and reduce cognitive load during integration, testing, and on-orbit operations.
Develop tools for flight-software simulations, device emulators, and scenario-based automated tests to support safe, rapid iteration by avionics, GNC, and operations teams.
Design, implement, and productionize software for mission and ground software teams.
Standardize and deliver self-service tooling for CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, service templates, infrastructure-as-code, simulation and hardware-in-the-loop frameworks, test harnesses, and observability.
Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks, including safe rollout and rollback strategies and deployment approaches for air-gapped or limited-connectivity environments.