Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Varda Space Industries; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 153,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA is seeking a Senior Site Reliability Engineer to build, scale, and maintain the infrastructure powering our Earth and in‑orbit systems. You will apply first‑principles thinking to DevOps and production reliability in mission‑critical environments.

The role emphasizes Kubernetes, containerized tech, IaC with Terraform, and observability, with on‑call rotations, weekend extended hours, and occasional travel to customer sites or other Varda locations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related STEM field plus 5+ years in SRE/DevOps, or 7+ years in lieu of a degree.
• Experience with Terraform to automate server provisioning and configuration management.
• Production experience with Kubernetes or similar container orchestration.
• Familiarity with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, InfluxDB).
• Strong scripting in Python, Bash, or PowerShell and good communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Deploy, maintain, and operate mission-critical applications and infrastructure.
• Build and evolve IaC frameworks and CI/CD pipelines.
• Implement observability systems and actionable alerting.
• Collaborate with software and hardware teams to deliver reliable pipelines and systems.
• Participate in on-call rotations and incident response with blameless postmortems.

Skills

IaC (Terraform)

Kubernetes

Containerization

SRE best practices

Python/Bash scripting

Observability (Prometheus/Grafana/Infl

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering or related STEM field

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

ArgoCD

Docker

Prometheus/Grafana

Job description

About Varda

Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules.

About Varda

Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. Varda’s W-Series vehicles are built, designed, and operated by Varda in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields, and the satellite buses. From life‑saving pharmaceuticals to more powerful fiber optics, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space. Varda is accelerating innovation in the orbital economy by creating both the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind. Our team is uniquely suited to accomplishing this goal, with leadership and staff comprised of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley. Varda was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov with significant backing from world class investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, and Also Capital. Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, where we have offices and a production facility where our vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested. Varda also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL. Join Varda, and work to create a bustling in‑space ecosystem.

About This Role

At Varda Space Industries, we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible in space and materials science — and we’re looking for bold engineers to help us get there. As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you'll be critical in building, scaling, and maintaining the infrastructure that powers our systems on Earth, in orbit, and everything in between.

We are looking for an experienced engineer with deep working knowledge of Kubernetes and containerized technologies. You are a hands‑on operator and builder who applies first‑principles thinking to both software delivery (DevOps) and production reliability (SRE), and thrives in complex, mission‑critical environments.

In this role, you will:

• Solve challenging technical problems across a wide range of modern technologies.


• Apply a software engineering mindset to automate operations and improve system reliability, scalability, and resilience


• Design and build infrastructure that enables rapid development — from cloud-based services to embedded software running on spacecraft.


• Shape Varda’s infrastructure strategy and drive operational excellence across containerized and modernized environments.

Responsibilities

• Deploy, maintain, and operate mission‑critical applications and infrastructure supporting spacecraft and company‑wide systems.


• Build and evolve Infrastructure as Code (IaC) frameworks using tools such as Terraform


• Implement and operate observability systems (metrics, logging, tracing) and actionable alerting.


• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to enable safe, repeatable, and rapid deployments.


• Partner with software and hardware engineers to deliver highly operable, reliable, and scalable systems and pipelines, ensuring they have the tools and infrastructure needed for rapid iteration.


• Identify, analyze, and resolve system bottlenecks and reliability risks; perform performance tuning and implement long‑term stability improvements.


• Respond to and resolve production incidents; perform root cause analysis and drive corrective actions through blameless postmortems.


• Rotate through the team’s on‑call schedule to keep critical systems healthy and responsive.


• Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed


• Occasionally travel to customer sites and other Varda locations to troubleshoot, deploy, or test critical infrastructure.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related STEM field with 5+ years of Site Reliability Engineering experience, or 7+ years of progressive experience in DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering in lieu of a degree.


• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform to automate server provisioning and configuration management


• Experience operating Kubernetes or similar container orchestration platforms in production environments.


• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, InfluxDB, or similar technologies.


• Knowledge of software‑defined networking (VPC, Subnets, Firewalls, VPNs, etc.)


• Python, Bash, PowerShell (or similar) scripting experience


• Positive and strong communication skills, both written and oral

Preferred Skills And Experience

• Experience in provisioning and managing scalable Azure cloud infrastructure using native tools and best practices


• Experience implementing configuration management, provisioning, and workflow automation solutions via Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and GitOps (e.g., Ansible, Salt, ArgoCD, etc).


• Strong understanding of Linux systems and container runtimes (e.g., containerd, Docker)


• Experience with GPU workloads or high‑throughput computing.


• Hands‑on experience operating and optimizing High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, including workload schedulers such as Slurm (e.g., queue/partition design, fair‑share scheduling, and cluster resource management).


• Experience with hybrid environments (cloud + on‑prem or edge systems)


• Experience debugging distributed systems at scale (network, storage, latency)


• Experience with databases and data modeling

Pay Range

• Site Reliability Engineer: $153,000.00 - $185,000.00/per year


• This role is on-site in El Segundo, CA


• Leveling and base salary are determined by job‑related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance


• You will be eligible for long‑term incentives in the form of stock options and/or long‑term cash awards

ITAR Requirements

Varda, like all employers, must ensure that its employees working in the United States are lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. Additionally, our employees are exposed to and have access to certain export‑controlled items. Because our employees are provided access to export‑controlled items, our policy is to only hire “U.S. persons” who are permitted to have access to our technology without an export license.

“US person” means: U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) (i.e., individual admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum).

E-Verify Notice Right To Work Notice

Varda Space Industries, Inc. participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.

Varda Space Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, martial status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.