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Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems and reentry capsules. The company designs and operates its W-Series vehicles end-to-end, from satellite buses to heat shields to processing payloads.
As an Automation and Controls Engineer, you will design, build, and own sophisticated ground support equipment (GSE) and test systems that qualify spaceflight hardware for orbit. This includes propulsion test stands, environmental qualification chambers, and spacecraft-level integration testing infrastructure.
Key responsibilities:
- Design and maintain test systems and GSE for flight hardware qualification and manufacturing operations
- Integrate with diverse external hardware: thermal vacuum chambers, ovens, chillers, pressure systems, data acquisition hardware, and precision instrumentation
- Develop and extend Varda's internal PLC framework and EtherCAT tooling using Beckhoff TwinCAT 3
- Contribute to architecture decisions on real-time control implementation, evaluating PLC-based versus Linux-based approaches for high-frequency control
- Build electrical cabinets and wire panels; own systems end-to-end from design through commissioning
- Partner with propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams to deliver test infrastructure on aggressive timelines
- Champion sustainable engineering practices to enable team ramp-up and system reliability
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field
- 2+ years of industry experience in test automation, controls, or industrial automation
- Hands-on experience integrating industrial hardware over EtherCAT, Modbus, RS-232/485 serial, or similar protocols
- Experience with modern PLC ecosystems, ideally Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 with structured text (IEC 61131-3)
- Full-stack comfort: control software, electrical panel design, cabinet wiring, hardware debugging
- Ability to thrive in fast-paced startup environment with shifting priorities and end-to-end ownership
Preferred qualifications include strong intuition for PLC versus Python orchestration tradeoffs, custom control framework experience, advanced EtherCAT expertise, production TwinCAT 3 experience, deterministic real-time control loop design, time-series data acquisition tools (Grafana, InfluxDB), aerospace experience, and environmental test experience (TVAC, thermal cycling).
