Senior Ground-Segment Software Engineer - On-Site El Segundo

Frontdoor Defense; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 169,000 - 216,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

On-site in El Segundo

Job summary

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA, seeks a Senior Mission Software Engineer to own and evolve ground-segment software for spacecraft operations. You will develop high-reliability telemetry ingestion, control interfaces, and test automation across lab and mission environments.

You should have 5+ years in safety-critical software, strong Python skills, real-time data handling, and experience with CI/CD, Docker/Kubernetes, and observability to enable robust, scalable ground systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering or equivalent technical experience in safety critical software.
• 5+ 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 across integration, test, and on-orbit operations phases.
• 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 infrastructure-as-code.
• Deployments Across Environments: Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks; safe rollout/rollback strategies.

Skills

Python

Concurrency

Networking

Performance

Reliability

CI/CD

Infrastructure as code

Observability

Docker/Kubernetes

Flight software

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

C++

Ansible

NiceGUI

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA, seeks a Senior Mission Software Engineer to own and evolve ground-segment software for spacecraft operations. You will develop high-reliability telemetry ingestion, control interfaces, and test automation across lab and mission environments.

You should have 5+ years in safety-critical software, strong Python skills, real-time data handling, and experience with CI/CD, Docker/Kubernetes, and observability to enable robust, scalable ground systems.