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Varda Space Industries is building commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing systems and reentry capsules. The company designs and operates its W-Series vehicles end-to-end, from payloads to heat shields to satellite buses, with headquarters in El Segundo, California.
As a Terrestrial Controls Engineer, you will design, build, and own sophisticated ground support equipment (GSE) and test systems that qualify spaceflight hardware for orbit. This includes propulsion test stands, environmental qualification chambers, and spacecraft-level integration testing infrastructure. You'll work with Varda's modern tech stack, including a custom PLC framework and Beckhoff EtherCAT tooling built in-house.
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
- Contribute to architecture decisions on real-time control implementation, evaluating PLC-based (TwinCAT 3) versus Linux-based approaches
- 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 to enable team ramp-up and system reliability
Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field; 2+ years of industry experience in test automation, controls, or industrial automation; hands-on experience integrating 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); comfort working across the full stack from control software to electrical panel design and cabinet wiring; proven ability to thrive in fast-paced startup environments with shifting priorities and end-to-end ownership.
Preferred qualifications include strong intuition for PLC versus Python orchestration tradeoffs, experience with custom in-house control frameworks, advanced EtherCAT expertise, production TwinCAT 3 experience, deterministic hard real-time control loop design, familiarity with time-series data tools like Grafana or InfluxDB, aerospace experience, and environmental test experience (TVAC, thermal cycling).
