Avionics Design Reliability Engineer

Socket.dev; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 162,360 - 265,392; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical benefits

Paid time off

Vacation days

Parental leave

Onsite meals

Job summary

Vast in Long Beach, California is seeking an Avionics Design Reliability Engineer to guide the design, verification, and validation of Haven‑1, the world’s first commercial human‑rated space station. This full‑time, exempt role reports to the Sr.

Manager of Design Reliability and focuses on design ownership, technical reviews, risk reduction, and ensuring flight hardware reliability across milestones. Qualifications include a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical or Aerospace Engineering, 6+ years in

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Aerospace, Physics, or related field.
• 6+ years in responsible engineering and design ownership.
• Experience with avionics, RF, and power systems.
• Strong ability to lead design reviews and risk assessments.
• Familiarity with test campaigns and qualification activities.

Responsibilities

• Guide avionics, RF, and power system design for Haven‑1.
• Lead technical reviews and drive risk-based decision making.
• Ensure flight, launch, and ground support design criteria are met.
• Develop verification approaches and test plans for qualification.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally to improve design processes.
• Maintain design maturity tracking and configuration management.

Skills

Avionics design

RF engineering

Power systems

Design reviews

Reliability engineering

Scripting (Python)

Data analysis (Excel)

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or related Engineering discipline

Tools

Tableau

Python

MATLAB

Excel

Job description

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next‑generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware‑rich and low‑cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi‑module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven‑1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all‑in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time.

Role

Avionics Design Reliability Engineer, reporting to the Sr. Manager of Design Reliability, to guide the design, verification, and validation of Haven‑1, the world’s first commercial human‑rated space station.

This is a full‑time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

Technical Leadership

• Guide design of avionics, RF, and power systems on a large‑scale space station.
• Cultivate Vast's understanding of electrical, RF, and power system analysis considerations to drive design decisions.
• Lead technical reviews, providing clear guidance of mechanical design, analysis, manufacturing drawings, test plans, and concepts of operation during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
• Perform critical peer review and approval of hardware designs during design reviews and of acceptance and qualification test campaigns.
• Ensure the design process and criteria are followed for flight, launch, and ground support systems.
• Set the standard for acceptance and qualification test completeness for flight systems, ensuring test campaigns are robust, disciplined, and aligned with human‑rated reliability.
• Apply deep engineering intuition to test campaigns, identifying risks early and helping teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.

Design Excellence

• Architect Vast’s avionics, RF, power, and EMI/EMC engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks; build tools that enable fast, confident decision‑making at all levels across the company.
• Develop design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches to support Haven‑1 design architecture.
• Make engineering best practices accessible and actionable, especially for engineers moving rapidly under ambitious program timelines.
• Support and elevate engineering teams across the organization by bringing broad experience in design, build cycles, integration, and test.
• Turn organizational knowledge into lasting guidance by capturing lessons learned and strengthening future standards.

Process Ownership

• Build and steward processes that ensure engineering rigor at scale—ensuring designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, and changes are consistently implemented.
• Own and continuously refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal design guides.
• Track design maturity and compliance across the station and vehicle architecture, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
• Build tools, frameworks, and automation that empower engineers to explore design trade‑offs and risks with clarity and speed.

Change and Configuration Management

• Work across all facets of the engineering organization to improve vehicle reliability.
• Partner with configuration and change management so that every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and fully understood.
• Drive technical trades for the vehicle and enable decisions backed by strong physics‑based engineering rationale.
• Coordinate between Change Management, Risk, and Engineering teams to ensure design revisions drive continuous improvement on the vehicle.
• Collaborate with the internal software team to ensure system data, configuration details, and design decisions are well organized and accessible.

Risk Management

• Partner with the Risk management team to identify risk and drive design improvements with engineering to mitigate.
• Work with Risk Management and Engineering to quantify risk and failure probability through rigorous engineering rationale.
• Drive FMEA and Fault tree analysis across all engineering systems to identify and reduce risk.
• Promote best practices for traceability and verification & validation of design revisions to thoroughly document risk mitigations across flight, launch, and ground support systems.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or related Engineering discipline.
• 6+ years of related professional work experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability‑focused development.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• 10+ years of related professional work experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability‑focused development.
• Experience in Responsible Engineering, Systems Engineering, Office of the Chief Engineer, or Reliability Engineering roles on complex aerospace systems.
• Hands‑on experience designing, assembling, integrating, or testing hardware.
• Background with spacecraft, aircraft, launch vehicles, or other mission‑ or safety‑critical systems.
• Familiarity with fracture control, reliability methodologies, or human‑rated hardware standards.
• Experience creating engineering standards, review templates, or technical guidance frameworks.
• Strong scripting and data analysis skills (Python, MATLAB, Excel) and familiarity with visualization tools (e.g., Tableau).
• Knowledge of manufacturing processes, materials selection, and hardware qualification pathways.
• Strong systems‑level intuition and the ability to anticipate and articulate risks early.

Additional Requirements

• Willingness to work overtime or weekends to support critical mission milestones.

Pay Range

California: $162,360 – $265,392 USD

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary will vary depending on job‑related knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Salary is just one component of our comprehensive compensation package. Full‑time employees also receive company equity, and access to a full suite of compelling benefits and perks, including medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents; generous paid time off; up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff and up to 10+ days of vacation for non‑exempt staff with the ability to cash‑out unused vacation annually; paid parental leave; short and long‑term disability insurance; life insurance; access to a 401(k) retirement plan; ClassPass credits; personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health; and other discounts and perks. We also offer exceptional food perks with snacks, drip coffee and onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge, and lunch subsidized as part of Vast’s commitment to providing high‑quality meals for employees.

Export Control Compliance Status

The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.

Equal Opportunity

Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Vast is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.