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Salary: USD 169,067 - 216,031 / annual
Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems, reentry capsules, and satellite buses. The company designs, builds, and operates its W-Series vehicles entirely in-house, with leadership and engineering talent drawn from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies, and Silicon Valley.
The Senior Flight Software Engineer is responsible for determining how Varda's spacecraft behave and operate in orbit, and for building the reliable software that makes this possible. You will own all aspects of flight software development across the entire mission lifecycle, from requirements capture through design, testing, integration, and flight operations support.
Key responsibilities include:
- Developing reliable flight software for spacecraft, satellite buses, and reentry capsules that operate throughout the entire mission
- Writing quality structured bare metal, RTOS, or Linux-based software for embedded processors in C++
- Owning all aspects of software development: design, testing, and integration
- Scoping projects, capturing requirements, and conducting initial design trades for open-ended problems
- Ensuring system quality and performance through software test, verification, and validation (V&V) techniques
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams to solve complex problems
Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, with additional offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL. The company has raised significant funding from top-tier investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and General Catalyst.
Note: This role requires ITAR compliance. Varda only hires "U.S. persons" (U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or individuals admitted as refugees or granted asylum) due to access to export-controlled technology.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, engineering, or equivalent technical experience in safety-critical software
- 5+ years of experience in the development of spacecraft or similar safety-critical software
- Experience with C++ development and strong understanding of language concepts
Preferred qualifications:
- End-to-end experience building and launching a spacecraft
- Experience developing and testing real-time embedded systems
- Experience with safety-critical software, especially for aerospace applications
- Experience with CCSDS telemetry and telecommand systems
- Experience with F' or cFS frameworks
- Experience with Python or Rust
- Knowledge of basic analog and digital electronics
- Familiarity with SPI, I2C, CAN, or EtherCAT protocols
