Spacecraft Mission Software Engineer (Ground Systems)

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

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Relocation support

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA is seeking a Mission Software Engineer to own ground-segment services and deliver operator-grade interfaces for spacecraft operations. You will develop telemetry ingestion, distribution, and real-time control tooling to support testing and on-orbit activities.

Ideal candidates bring a strong background in safety-critical software, Python, CI/CD, and observability, plus hands-on experience with Docker/Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code for robust

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering or equivalent technical experience in safety critical software.
• 3+ 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 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; CI/CD pipelines and IaC.
• Deployments Across Environments: Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks.

Skills

Bachelor's degree

3+ years safety-critical software

Python

Concurrency & networking

Real-time data

CI/CD & IaC

Observability

Docker/Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor's degree (CS/Math/Engineering)

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Varda Space Industries in El Segundo, CA is seeking a Mission Software Engineer to own ground-segment services and deliver operator-grade interfaces for spacecraft operations. You will develop telemetry ingestion, distribution, and real-time control tooling to support testing and on-orbit activities.

Ideal candidates bring a strong background in safety-critical software, Python, CI/CD, and observability, plus hands-on experience with Docker/Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code for robust