Senior Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer — Real-Time Ops

Varda Space Industries, Inc.; El Segundo (CA); Hybrid; USD 169,000 - 216,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Relocation assistance

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

Varda Space Industries, Inc. is hiring a Senior Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer in El Segundo, CA. You will own mission software across telemetry, data distribution, and ground systems, collaborating with avionics, RF/ground teams, and mission ops.

The role requires 5+ years in safety-critical software, strong Python skills, and solid CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes experience. On-site work and opportunities for equity are offered, with a comprehensive benefits package.

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. Ensure deterministic behavior for real-time operations and post-flight analysis.
• 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—enabling fast, safe iteration for avionics, GNC, and operations teams.
• Build the Mission Platform: Design, implement, and productionize software for mission and ground software teams. Standardize CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, service templates, infrastructure-as-code, simulation and hardware-in-the-loop frameworks, test harnesses, and observability - all delivered as self-service tooling.
• Deployments Across Environments: Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks. Implement safe rollout/rollback strategies and air-gapped or limited-connectivity deployment approaches.

Skills

Python

CI/CD

Distributed systems

Real-time data

Observability

Docker

Kubernetes

C++

NiceGUI

Ansible

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering or equivalent

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

C++

NiceGUI

Ansible

Job description

Varda Space Industries, Inc. is hiring a Senior Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer in El Segundo, CA. You will own mission software across telemetry, data distribution, and ground systems, collaborating with avionics, RF/ground teams, and mission ops.

The role requires 5+ years in safety-critical software, strong Python skills, and solid CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes experience. On-site work and opportunities for equity are offered, with a comprehensive benefits package.