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Varda Space Industries is seeking an Applications Engineer to lead the development, deployment, and management of engineering applications that support the company's spacecraft, reentry capsule, and pharmaceutical processing payload development. Reporting to the Director of Enterprise Applications, you will own Varda's engineering systems stack, including PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), CAD/PDM, MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering), and change management tools.
Key responsibilities include:
- Daily administration and maintenance of the engineering systems stack, ensuring data integrity, configuration control, vendor escalations, and coordinating release cycles across multiple platforms.
- Mapping and re-engineering engineering workflows to eliminate manual handoffs and improve data capture at the source, reducing cycle time and operational friction.
- Building internal applications using low-code platforms and custom development, plus ETL pipelines that integrate engineering tools into the broader enterprise data layer.
- Designing analytics dashboards and reports in Power BI, SQL, and Python to surface actionable insights for engineering and manufacturing leadership.
- Developing and deploying AI-powered tools, including LLM-based agents and generative tooling, to streamline engineering workflows and improve productivity.
- Supporting AS9100 and CMMC compliance documentation requirements, partnering with IT and Information Security on access controls and audit readiness.
- Leading training and enablement initiatives to drive adoption of engineering tools and reduce shadow IT across the organization.
You will work cross-functionally with multiple engineering teams across Varda's El Segundo headquarters, Washington DC, and Huntsville offices to ensure tools are integrated, compliant, and scaled to support both hardware and software development workflows. Your contributions will directly impact engineering operations and support Varda's mission to accelerate the commercial space economy.
Required qualifications include a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field; 3+ years supporting or managing enterprise engineering applications; proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting language (Python, JavaScript, etc.); demonstrated experience building BI reports and dashboards; and strong communication skills for technical documentation and stakeholder engagement.
Preferred experience includes direct PLM platform administration (Teamcenter, Windchill, Arena), CAD data management systems (SolidWorks PDM, Vault), MBSE toolchains (CAMEO, Capella), aerospace engineering data standards, AS9100/CMMC compliance support, and ETL tools (Alteryx, dbt, SSIS, Informatica) or cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, AWS Redshift).
