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Salary: USD 140,333 - 179,314 / annual
Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems, reentry capsules, and satellite buses. The company designs and operates all major subsystems in-house and is backed by leading investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund.
The Senior Terrestrial Automation and Controls Engineer designs, builds, and maintains sophisticated ground support equipment (GSE) and test systems that qualify spaceflight hardware for orbit. This role owns bespoke test infrastructure end-to-end, from propulsion test stands and environmental qualification chambers to spacecraft-level integration testing.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design, build, and maintain test systems and GSE for flight hardware qualification and manufacturing operations
- Integrate with 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 for high-frequency control applications
- Build cabinets, wire panels, and own systems end-to-end from electrical design through commissioning
- Partner with propulsion, avionics, GNC, and manufacturing teams to deliver test infrastructure on aggressive timelines
- Champion sustainable engineering practices that enable new engineers to ramp quickly and maintain production systems reliably
The role offers meaningful impact on architecture decisions and the opportunity to define standards that will outlast any single program. You will work with a modern tech stack including custom PLC frameworks and Beckhoff EtherCAT tooling built in-house.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related technical field
- 5+ years of industry experience in test automation, controls, and/or industrial automation
- Hands-on experience integrating with industrial hardware over protocols such as EtherCAT, Modbus (TCP/RTU), RS-232/485 serial, or similar communication standards
- Experience with at least one modern PLC ecosystem—ideally Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 with structured text (IEC 61131-3), or demonstrated eagerness to develop deep expertise there
- Comfort working across the full stack: designing electrical panels, wiring cabinets, debugging hardware, and writing control software
- Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment where priorities shift and end-to-end ownership of problems is expected
Preferred experience includes: strong intuition for real-time PLC code versus higher-level Python orchestration; experience with custom or in-house control frameworks; advanced EtherCAT expertise (DC sync, ENI configuration, master implementation, driver-level work); production experience with TwinCAT 3 and IEC 61131-3; designing deterministic, hard real-time control loops with sub-millisecond cycle times; familiarity with time-series data acquisition tools (Grafana, InfluxDB); aerospace experience in spacecraft testing or GSE development; environmental test experience (TVAC, thermal cycling, vibration testing); hands-on experience with high-pressure gas or fluid systems; propulsion test stand development; familiarity with spacecraft qualification standards; experience developing safety-related control systems.
