Lead Design Reliability Engineer — Space Habitat Systems

Vast; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 117,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company equity

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Paid time off

Free meals and snacks

401(k) retirement plan

Job summary

Vast, headquartered in Long Beach, CA, seeks a Design Reliability Engineer to support artificial-gravity space habitats. This full-time exempt role reports to the Director of Design Reliability and ensures rigorous, reliable engineering across design, build, integration, and test.

You will lead and refine standards, drive major reviews, and collaborate across cross-functional teams to advance safe, high-performance space systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field.
• 7+ years in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.
• Experience conducting design reviews, qualification reviews, or major change assessments.
• Strong communicator and collaborative leader with high emotional intelligence and diplomacy.
• Resilient, curious, and committed to continuous learning in fast-paced environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical reviews shaping artificial-gravity habitats and guide milestone design reviews.
• Oversee qualification and test completeness for flight systems and ensure robust campaigns.
• Identify risks early and help teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.
• Evaluate design and operational changes to safeguard technical integrity.
• Architect and guard Vast’s engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks.
• Make engineering best practices accessible for engineers working under tight schedules.
• Support and elevate engineering teams across the organization with broad experience.
• Capture lessons learned and strengthen future standards across programs.
• Build processes to ensure rigor: designs meet standards, reviews are thorough, changes tracked.
• Own and refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal guides.
• Track design maturity and compliance across station and vehicle architecture.
• Build tools and automation to explore design trade-offs quickly.
• Collaborate across engineering to improve reliability and risk management.
• Work with configuration/change management to ensure intentional hardware updates.
• Coordinate with software teams to organize system data and design decisions.

Skills

Strong communicator

Collaborative leader

Emotional intelligence

Diplomacy

Continuous learning

Resilient

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical/Aerospace/Systems Engineering

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Excel

Tableau

Job description

Vast, headquartered in Long Beach, CA, seeks a Design Reliability Engineer to support artificial-gravity space habitats. This full-time exempt role reports to the Director of Design Reliability and ensures rigorous, reliable engineering across design, build, integration, and test.

You will lead and refine standards, drive major reviews, and collaborate across cross-functional teams to advance safe, high-performance space systems.