Spacecraft Ground Systems Engineer — Real-Time Ops & UI

Vardaspace; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 131,000 - 184,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity / Stock options

Relocation support

401(k)

Health insurance

On-site meals

Job summary

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA is seeking a Mission Software Engineer to advance ground segment software for spacecraft operations, including telemetry, commanding, and data workflows. You will work with flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and mission ops, delivering scalable, high-reliability services and operator interfaces.

The role emphasizes real-time processing, observability, and secure deployments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a technical field and experience in safety-critical software.
• 3+ years of experience in development of spacecraft or similar safety-critical software.
• Expertise with Python and strong understanding of language concepts.
• Strong systems fundamentals: concurrency, networking, performance, reliability.
• Experience building real-time data acquisition, scaling, and distribution services.

Responsibilities

• Own Ground Segment Services: Develop and maintain high-reliability telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding services.
• Mission Control Interfaces: Deliver operator-grade UIs and dashboards to optimize ops time and reduce cognitive load.
• Simulation and Test Automation: Build tools for flight-software simulations and device emulators.
• Build the Mission Platform: Design and productionize software with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code.
• Deployments Across Environments: Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches and mission networks.

Skills

Python

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

Safety-critical software

Real-time systems

Observability

Concurrency

Networking

Flight software

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering or equivalent technical experience in safety critical software

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Infrastructure-as-code

DevOps

Job description

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA is seeking a Mission Software Engineer to advance ground segment software for spacecraft operations, including telemetry, commanding, and data workflows. You will work with flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and mission ops, delivering scalable, high-reliability services and operator interfaces.

The role emphasizes real-time processing, observability, and secure deployments.