Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer Long , California,

Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer

Long Beach, California, United States

Vast is looking for a Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer
, reporting to the Sr. Manager of Design Reliability
, to guide the design, verification, and validation of Haven-1, the world's first commercial human‑rated space station.

As a Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer, you will ensure thermal fluids systems on Haven-1 are appropriately designed and function reliably, without failure, over their intended lifespan by integrating reliability principles directly into the design process. You will drive Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), guide test plan definition, review verification & validation data, and facilitate design teams to prevent failures before manufacturing.

You will work closely with hardware teams to ensure build practices meet design intent, define test methodologies, and analyze field data to improve design robustness. You will be responsible for shepherding the Haven-1 thermal, environmental control, and life support systems through detailed design and transitioning the space station from design, to a built and tested station ready to host humans in space.

This will be a full‑time
, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

• Guide design of thermal, environmental control, and life support systems on a large scale space station.
• Cultivate Vast's understanding of thermal and fluids analysis considerations to drive design decisions.
• Lead the technical reviews providing clear, decisive guidance of mechanical design and analysis, manufacturing drawings, test plans, concept of operations, during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
• Provide critical peer review and approval of hardware designs during design reviews, and of acceptance and qualification test campaigns.
• Ensure that the Vasts design process & design criteria/requirements are being followed for flight, launch, and ground support systems.
• Set the standard for acceptance and qualification test completeness for flight systems, ensuring our test campaigns are robust, disciplined, and aligned with human‑rated reliability.
• Bring deep engineering intuition to test campaigns, identifying risks early and helping teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.
• Architect Vast’s thermal fluids, environmental, and life support engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks; build tools that enable fast, confident decision‑making at all levels across the company.
• Develop design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches to support haven-1 design architecture.
• Make engineering best practices accessible and actionable, especially for engineers moving rapidly under ambitious program timelines.
• Support and elevate engineering teams across the organization by bringing broad experience in design, build cycles, integration, and test.
• Turn organizational knowledge into lasting guidance by capturing lessons learned and strengthening future standards.

• Build and steward the processes that ensure engineering rigor at scale—ensuring designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, and changes are consistently implemented.
• Own and continuously refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal design guides.
• Track design maturity and compliance across the station and vehicle architecture, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
• Build tools, frameworks, and automation that empower engineers to explore design trade‑offs and risks with clarity and speed.

• Work across all facets of the engineering organization to improve vehicle reliability.
• Partner with configuration and change management so that every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and fully understood.
• Drive technical trades for the vehicle and enable decisions backed by strong physics‑based engineering rationale.
• Coordinate between Change Management, Risk, and Engineering teams to ensure design revisions drive continuous improvement on the vehicle.
• Partner with the internal software team to ensure system data, configuration details, and design decisions are well organized…