Senior Mission Software Engineer

About Varda Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. Varda’s W-Series vehicles are built, designed, and operated in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields, and the satellite buses. From life-saving pharmaceuticals to more powerful fiber optics, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space.

Varda is accelerating innovation in the orbital economy by creating both the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind. Varda was founded in January 2021 and is headquartered in El Segundo, California, with additional offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL. Our team, comprised of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley, is uniquely equipped to accomplish this goal.

The Mission Software team is responsible for Varda's critical ground segment software and the platform it runs on, enabling spacecraft operations. We operate at the intersection of telemetry and commanding, data acquisition and distribution, mission control interfaces, simulation and test automation, delivering reliable deployment across lab, test range, and mission operations environments.

• Own Ground Segment Services:
  Develop and maintain high-reliability services for telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding. Ensure deterministic behavior for real-time operations and post-flight analysis.
• Mission Control Interfaces:
  Deliver operator-grade UIs and dashboards that optimize ops time and reduce cognitive load across integration, test, and on-orbit operations phases.
• Simulation and Test Automation:
  Build tools for flight-software simulations, device emulators, and scenario-based automated tests – enabling fast, safe iteration for avionics, GNC, and operations teams.
• Build the Mission Platform:
  Design, implement, and product ionize software for mission and ground software teams. Standardize CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, service templates, infrastructure‑as‑code, simulation and hardware‑in‑the‑loop frameworks, test harnesses, and observability – all delivered as self-service tooling.
• Deployments Across Environments:
  Create robust deployment patterns for lab benches, test stands, and mission networks. Implement safe rollout/rollback strategies and air‑gapped or limited-connectivity deployment approaches.

• 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.
• Expertise with development in Python, along with a strong understanding of the language concepts.
• Strong systems fundamentals: concurrency, networking, performance, reliability.
• Experience building real‑time data acquisition, scaling, and distribution services – low-latency messaging, time-series and relational stores.
• Hands‑on experience with CI/CD, dependency/build systems, and infrastructure‑as‑code.
• End-to-end observability experience: logging, metrics, tracing.
• Docker/Kubernetes; release management, phased rollouts, and operational readiness for controlled networks.

• Proficiency in C++, Ansible, and/or NiceGUI.
• Experience with DAQ and closed-loop control (lab/test control environments).
• Prior work on CI/testing/simulation/data tools integrated with flight software teams.
• Experience with requirements, test, and certification artifacts from safety-critical or certified workflows.
• Knowledge of ground systems standards; security in mission networks.
• Experience building mission-grade UIs with structured command workflows, alarming, and situational awareness.

• Salary range: $169,000 – $216,000 annually.
• Leveling and base salary is determined by job-related skills, education level,…