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Salary: USD 140,333 - 202,703 / annual
Varda Space Industries is accelerating commercial space infrastructure development, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable reentry capsules. The company designs, builds, and operates W-Series vehicles in-house, including satellite buses, pharmaceutical processing payloads, heat shields, and reentry capsules. Varda is backed by top-tier investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund, with leadership from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and major pharmaceutical companies.
As a Senior Avionics Hardware Development Engineer, you will design and deliver flight-critical electrical hardware for Varda's satellite bus, reentry vehicle, and customer payloads. You will own your hardware domain end-to-end, from schematic capture through flight qualification. Your responsibilities include defining subsystem requirements based on mission and company objectives, designing to those requirements, and ensuring manufactured systems meet specifications. You will define safe operating criteria for hardware and support the mission operations team on risk tradeoffs when operating near design boundaries.
Key responsibilities:
- PCB-level electronics design across all lifecycle stages: schematic capture, layout, design validation, fabrication, assembly, and manufacturing test
- Distill high-level company and mission objectives into requirements, designs, and developmental milestones for your subsystems
- Serve as avionics subject matter expert for satellite, reentry vehicle, and payload hardware, supporting GNC, pharmaceutical, mission operations, and integration teams
- Collaborate cross-functionally with flight software, thermal, GNC, and structures teams to assess system-level impacts of design decisions
- Own product acceptance and qualification testing for space environments (thermal, vibration, shock, TVAC, EMI) with support from the Avionics Test team
- Provide direction on system-level integration test plans to verify hardware performance at the vehicle level
- Perform root cause analysis on test failures and implement holistic mitigation strategies for flight risks
- Mentor junior engineers on projects, challenges, and design methodologies
Varda emphasizes rigorous testing and validation: "We stress our components above and beyond the levels it should expect to see in flight and investigate our failures thoroughly."
The role is based in El Segundo, California, where Varda operates offices and a production facility for building, integrating, and testing vehicles and equipment. The company also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Required:
- B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related engineering discipline
- 5+ years of direct experience in electronics hardware development
- Demonstrated experience designing and delivering flight-critical electrical hardware (schematic capture through environmental qualification) on programs where hardware physically flew or was qualified for flight
- Demonstrable knowledge of signal integrity, power, and grounding board layout principles
- Strong hands-on lab experience with oscilloscopes, function generators, benchtop digital multimeters, and power supplies
- Experience programming in Python, MATLAB, or another scripting/data analysis language
- Demonstrated experience implementing the hardware layer of numerous on-board and over-harness communication protocols such as SPI, RS422, and 1000BASE-T
- Experience designing analog/digital filtering and mixed-signal circuits
- Power electronics design experience including load switches and switch mode DC:DC converters
Preferred:
- Industry-leading electronic circuit design and analysis skills
- Strong supporting general knowledge in physics, math, and chemistry fundamentals for designing electronics that experience unique environments
- Understanding of aerospace sensor and actuator technologies including RTDs, pressure transducers, brushless motors, solenoid valves, thermocouples, stepper motors, and rotary/linear encoders
Note: ITAR requirements apply. Varda only hires "U.S. persons" (U.S. citizens, U.S. lawful permanent residents, or individuals admitted as refugees or granted asylum) due to access to export-controlled items.
