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Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems, reentry capsules, and satellite buses. The company operates from El Segundo, California with additional offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, Alabama.
As a Ground Support Equipment Engineer on the Automation and Controls team, you will design, build, and maintain sophisticated test infrastructure that qualifies spaceflight hardware for orbit. This includes propulsion test stands, environmental qualification chambers, and spacecraft-level integration testing systems. You will work with a modern tech stack featuring a custom PLC framework and Beckhoff EtherCAT tooling developed in-house.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design and build test systems and ground support equipment for flight hardware qualification and manufacturing operations
- Integrate with diverse external hardware including thermal vacuum chambers, ovens, chillers, pressure systems, data acquisition hardware, and precision instrumentation
- Develop and extend Varda's internal PLC framework and EtherCAT tooling to support evolving program needs
- Contribute to architecture decisions on real-time control implementation, evaluating PLC-based (TwinCAT 3) versus Linux-based approaches
- Build electrical cabinets and wire panels, owning 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 that enable team ramp-up and reliable system maintenance
You will bring a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field, plus 2+ years of industry experience in test automation, controls, or industrial automation. Required skills include hands-on integration with industrial hardware over protocols like EtherCAT, Modbus, or RS-232/485 serial; experience with modern PLC ecosystems (ideally Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 with structured text/IEC 61131-3); and comfort working across the full stack from control software to electrical panel design and hardware debugging. You thrive in fast-paced startup environments with shifting priorities and end-to-end ownership expectations.
Preferred qualifications include strong intuition for real-time PLC versus Python orchestration tradeoffs, experience with custom in-house control frameworks, advanced EtherCAT expertise (DC sync, ENI configuration, master implementation), production TwinCAT 3 experience, deterministic hard real-time control loop design with sub-millisecond cycle times, familiarity with time-series data tools like Grafana or InfluxDB, aerospace experience in spacecraft testing or GSE development, and environmental test experience (TVAC, thermal cycling, vibration).
