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Salary: USD 120,000 - 170,000 / annual
Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems, reentry capsules, and satellite buses. The company operates the W-Series vehicles end-to-end, from design through on-orbit operations.
As a Spacecraft Mission Operations Engineer, you will be a core member of the Mission Operations team, responsible for developing, coordinating, and executing Varda's on-orbit missions. You will own the complete operations development cycle for mission-unique payloads, from mission profile creation through execution. Key responsibilities include:
- Develop, coordinate, execute, and lead on-orbit missions for the Winnie Spaceship
- Own full ops development for mission-unique payloads, from design through execution
- Collaborate across engineering disciplines to continuously improve mission operations and ensure success
- Build web-based tools and automation to reduce operational burden and scale capabilities
- Support growing flight cadence by scaling operational infrastructure
You will work in a startup environment with significant autonomy to shape mission operations frameworks and directly impact space-based manufacturing. The role requires strong cross-disciplinary engineering skills, exceptional communication, and the ability to solve novel problems in a high-consequence environment.
Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in engineering (Aerospace, Electrical, or Computer Science preferred); 2+ years in real-time operations on complex, high-consequence systems; 1+ years developing software tools in Python, JavaScript, and/or HTML; familiarity with spacecraft avionics, GNC, software, and thermal design.
Preferred: 3+ years spacecraft systems experience; leadership experience in operations; previous in-orbit spacecraft operations; Git and Atlassian experience; ground station network familiarity.
