SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 185,640 - 251,160 / annual
Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems, reentry capsules, and satellite buses. As Director of Payload Systems Integration and Test, you will lead a multidisciplinary engineering team responsible for end-to-end mission success across a diverse portfolio of payloads—including inertial, RF, and optical sensors, communication systems, and pharmaceutical processing hardware.
You will own the successful execution of multiple concurrent payload missions, delivering flight hardware that operates in orbit, survives hypersonic reentry, and returns to Earth reliably and at scale. Your team serves as the technical bridge between each payload and the Varda vehicle, defining interfaces, planning and executing payload integration and test campaigns, coordinating in-orbit operations, and ensuring safe recovery of payload data and hardware.
Key responsibilities include:
- Building and leading the Payload Systems Integration & Test team, hiring and developing engineers across experience levels
- Owning integration and test for Varda's internal pharmaceutical processing payloads: test planning, functional and process verification, contamination control, and environmental qualification of fluidic and thermal flight hardware
- Partnering with Payload & Mechanisms development engineers on pharma payload designs, shaping testability early in the design cycle
- Taking ambiguous customer mission objectives and determining how to meet them with the existing platform, or scoping non-recurring engineering needs
- Owning payload interface definition and requirements: ICDs, interface verification, and the Payload User Guide for external customers and internal teams
- Planning and executing payload integration and test campaigns, including interface verification, functional testing, and environmental qualification (random vibration, thermal vacuum, EMI/EMC, shock)
- Working with the production crew on cleanroom practices and payload hardware integration
- Coordinating with Vehicle Integration & Test as a sister function
- Working with Mission Management to hit contract milestones and serving as the technical face to customers through the mission lifecycle
- Supporting payload operations through flight, reentry, and recovery
- Establishing and maturing processes, documentation, and cleanroom practices to scale with mission cadence
Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, with offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL. The company was founded in 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov and is backed by Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, and Also Capital.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years of spacecraft or aerospace hardware experience spanning integration, test, and mission execution
- Demonstrated ability to take poorly-defined technical problems and turn them into executable plans, interfaces, and requirements
- Hands-on experience planning and running environmental qualification campaigns on flight hardware
- Strong interface engineering background: ICDs, requirements flow-down, interface verification across organizational boundaries
- Experience leading engineers, including hiring and developing early-career talent
- Breadth across mechanical, thermal, fluidic, electrical, and software interfaces, with enough depth to be a credible technical backstop for the team
- Cleanroom operations and contamination control experience
- Customer-facing experience: scoping work, managing execution schedules, setting expectations, and negotiating technical commitments
- B.S. in a relevant engineering discipline
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Active TS/SCI security clearance, or eligibility to be granted one
- Test and verification experience with fluidic, thermal, or process hardware (pharmaceutical, biological, chemical, or life sciences payloads)
- Experience with payload accommodation on a hosted or rideshare platform
- Reentry, recovery, or landed-vehicle experience
- Defense or government program experience
- Experience standing up a new function or team
- M.S. in aerospace, mechanical, chemical, or systems engineering
