Senior Space Mission Software Engineer (On-Site, Stock)

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

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Long-term cash awards

Job summary

Varda is seeking a Senior Space Mission Software Engineer in El Segundo, CA to lead the ground segment software that enables spacecraft operations. You will work at the intersection of telemetry, commanding, data acquisition, and mission control interfaces, ensuring deterministic real-time performance and reliable post-flight analysis.

You will build toolchains for simulations, device emulators, and automated tests across avionics and operations teams, while productionizing the mission platform

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering or equivalent technical experience.
• 5+ years of experience in safety-critical software development for spacecraft or similar domains.
• Proficiency in Python and strong programming language concepts.
• Solid grasp of concurrency, networking, performance, and reliability.
• Experience building real-time data acquisition, low-latency messaging, and data distribution services.
• Hands-on with CI/CD, dependencies/build systems, and infrastructure-as-code.
• End-to-end observability: logging, metrics, tracing.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes; release management for controlled networks.

Responsibilities

• Own Ground Segment Services: develop and maintain high-reliability telemetry ingestion, distribution, and commanding."
• Deliver operator-grade UI dashboards for mission control across stages of integration, testing, and on-orbit ops.
• Build tools for flight-software simulations, device emulators, and automated test scenarios for avionics and operations teams.
• Design and productionize software for mission and ground platforms; standardize CI/CD pipelines and infra-as-code templates.
• Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks with safe rollout strategies.

Skills

Python development

Concurrency concepts

Networking fundamentals

Performance optimization

Reliability engineering

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS, math, physics, engineering or equivalent

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

NiceGUI

Ansible

Job description

Varda is seeking a Senior Space Mission Software Engineer in El Segundo, CA to lead the ground segment software that enables spacecraft operations. You will work at the intersection of telemetry, commanding, data acquisition, and mission control interfaces, ensuring deterministic real-time performance and reliable post-flight analysis.

You will build toolchains for simulations, device emulators, and automated tests across avionics and operations teams, while productionizing the mission platform