Avionics Design Reliability Engineer

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next‑generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware‑rich and low‑cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi‑module Haven Station.

Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven‑1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all‑in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time.

Avionics 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.

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

• Guide design of avionics, RF, and power systems on a large‑scale space station.
• Cultivate Vast's understanding of electrical, RF, and power system analysis considerations to drive design decisions.
• Lead technical reviews, providing clear guidance of mechanical design, analysis, manufacturing drawings, test plans, and concepts of operation during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
• Perform critical peer review and approval of hardware designs during design reviews and of acceptance and qualification test campaigns.
• Ensure the design process and criteria are followed for flight, launch, and ground support systems.
• Set the standard for acceptance and qualification test completeness for flight systems, ensuring test campaigns are robust, disciplined, and aligned with human‑rated reliability.
• Apply deep engineering intuition to test campaigns, identifying risks early and helping teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.

• Architect Vast’s avionics, RF, power, and EMI/EMC 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 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…