Senior Orbital Ground Systems Software Engineer

Responsibilities

• Own Ground Segment Services by developing and maintaining high-reliability services for telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding.
• Deliver operator-grade mission control interfaces and dashboards to optimize operations and reduce cognitive load.
• Build simulation and test automation tools, including flight-software simulations and device emulators, to enable fast iteration.
• Design and productionize the mission platform, including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and hardware-in-the-loop frameworks.
• Create robust deployment patterns and rollout strategies across lab benches, test stands, and mission networks.

Requirements

• 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 in Python and a strong understanding of core language concepts.
• Strong systems fundamentals including concurrency, networking, performance, and 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.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with end-to-end observability, including logging, metrics, and tracing.

Preferred Qualifications

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

Benefits

• Salary range: $169,000 - $217,000 annually plus stock options.
• 100% company-paid Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance for employees and dependents.
• 401(k) retirement plan with 6% employer match (immediately vested).
• Flexible PTO policy plus 12 paid holidays.
• 12 weeks of parental leave.
• Daily lunch provided and dinner provided twice weekly.
• Dog-friendly office space and wellness reimbursements.

About the Company

Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind by creating the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth.