Mission Software Engineer II — Real-Time Space Ground Systems

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

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Relocation support

401(k) retirement plan

Job summary

Varda Space Industries seeks a Mission Software Engineer II to own the critical ground-segment software and the platform it runs on, enabling spacecraft operations. You will work with flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and mission ops across lab, test range, and live missions.

The role emphasizes real-time data handling, deterministic services, and reliable CI/CD pipelines, with opportunities to shape the mission infrastructure and deployment strategies. On-site in El Segundo, CA.

Qualifications

• BS/BA in CS, math, physics, engineering or equivalent safety-critical software experience.
• 3+ years building spacecraft or safety-critical software.
• Strong Python expertise and understanding of parallel/concurrent programming.
• Strong systems fundamentals: concurrency, networking, performance, reliability.
• Experience building real-time data acquisition, low-latency messaging, and distribution services.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain high-reliability ground-segment services for telemetry ingestion, distribution, and commanding.
• Develop operator-grade UIs and dashboards to optimize mission operations.
• Build tools for flight-software simulations, device emulators, and automated tests for avionics and GNC.
• Design and productionize the mission platform with CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, and observability.
• Create deployment patterns for lab benches, test ranges, and mission networks.

Skills

Python

Concurrency

Networking

Real-time data acquisition

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Varda Space Industries seeks a Mission Software Engineer II to own the critical ground-segment software and the platform it runs on, enabling spacecraft operations. You will work with flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and mission ops across lab, test range, and live missions.

The role emphasizes real-time data handling, deterministic services, and reliable CI/CD pipelines, with opportunities to shape the mission infrastructure and deployment strategies. On-site in El Segundo, CA.