Mission Software Engineer II - Ground Ops & Platform

Varda; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 184,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

Paid holidays

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

HSA options

Accident insurance

Hospital insurance

Critical illness insurance

Pet insurance

Wellness reimbursement

Parental leave

One Medical membership

Equity incentives

401(k) match

Cell phone reimbursement

Relocation support

EV charging

Job summary

Varda is seeking a Mission Software Engineer II in El Segundo, CA to own and improve the ground segment software and related flight-ground interfaces. You’ll work across telemetry, commanding, data distribution, and mission control, with hands-on exposure to flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and operations.

The role emphasizes real-time systems, CI/CD, and observability, with opportunities to build scalable, self-service tooling and robust deployment patterns across lab, test, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering or equivalent.
• 3+ years of experience in the development of spacecraft or similar safety critical software.
• Expertise with development in Python, along with a strong understanding of the language concepts.
• Have strong systems fundamentals: concurrency, networking, performance, reliability.
• Experience building real-time data acquisition, scaling, and distribution services - low-latency messaging, time-series and relational stores.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD, dependency/build systems, and infrastructure-as-code.
• End-to-end observability experience: logging, metrics, tracing.
• Docker/Kubernetes; release management, phased rollouts, and operational readiness for controlled networks.

Responsibilities

• Own Ground Segment Services: Develop and maintain high-reliability services for telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding.
• Mission Control Interfaces: Deliver operator-grade UIs and dashboards that optimize ops time and reduce cognitive load.
• Simulation and Test Automation: Build tools to run flight-software simulations, device emulators, and scenario-based automated tests.
• Build the Mission Platform: Design, implement, and productionize software for mission and ground software teams; standardize CI/CD pipelines and IaC.
• Deployments Across Environments: Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks; implement safe rollout/rollback strategies.

Skills

Python

Real-time systems

CI/CD

Docker/Kubernetes

Networking

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Ansible

NiceGUI

Job description

Varda is seeking a Mission Software Engineer II in El Segundo, CA to own and improve the ground segment software and related flight-ground interfaces. You’ll work across telemetry, commanding, data distribution, and mission control, with hands-on exposure to flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and operations.

The role emphasizes real-time systems, CI/CD, and observability, with opportunities to build scalable, self-service tooling and robust deployment patterns across lab, test, and