Varda Space Industries
Flight Software Internship - Spring 2027
About this role
Varda seeks a Flight Software Engineering Intern for Spring 2027 (January–May) to contribute to mission-critical ground systems, flight software, and embedded systems that power commercial space vehicles. Working full-time on-site in El Segundo, CA, you'll build Python and C++ tools, strengthen testing automation, and collaborate across flight, mission operations, and embedded teams on real spacecraft systems.
What you'll do
- Build Python and/or C++ tools, services, and libraries for flight and ground systems with emphasis on correctness and observability
- Contribute to automation for simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and scenario-based testing
- Debug cross-layer issues involving OS behavior, networking, timing, and hardware-software interactions
- Apply first-principles reasoning to solve problems and justify design tradeoffs
- Collaborate with flight software, embedded systems, mission operations, and test teams
- Work with mentors to match projects to your skills and coursework
What they're looking for
- C++
- Python
- Embedded systems and microcontroller programming
- Hardware-in-the-loop testing
- Data structures and algorithms
- Operating systems concepts
- Debugging and troubleshooting
- Systems thinking and cross-layer problem solving
Benefits
- Mentorship from experienced flight software and embedded systems engineers
- Work on real mission-critical spacecraft systems
- Full-time on-site internship in El Segundo, CA production facility
- Opportunity to grow technically and professionally on impactful projects
- Exposure to ground systems, flight software, and mission operations
- Flexible start/end dates aligned with university schedule
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Varda Space Industries
Varda Space Industries builds commercial spacecraft and orbital manufacturing systems for missions in low Earth orbit, including reentry capsules and satellite buses. The company is hiring mission operations engineers, software engineers (ground segment, flight, and embedded), and manufacturing engineers to develop mission-critical systems, operational infrastructure, and scalable production capabilities.
- Website
- varda.com
Likely interview questions
- Tell us about a project where you debugged an issue across multiple abstraction layers—how did you approach it?
- Describe your experience with embedded systems or microcontrollers and what you built.