Mission Software Engineer

About this role

Varda seeks a Mission Software Engineer to develop critical ground segment software and mission control platforms for commercial spacecraft operations. You'll own telemetry/commanding services, build operator dashboards, create simulation and test automation tools, and establish deployment infrastructure across lab, test, and mission environments.

What you'll do

• Develop and maintain high-reliability ground segment services for telemetry ingestion, scaling, distribution, and commanding
• Design operator-grade mission control UIs and dashboards optimized for integration, test, and on-orbit operations
• Build simulation frameworks and test automation tools for flight software, device emulators, and scenario-based testing
• Design and productionize mission platform software including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and observability tooling
• Implement robust deployment patterns and safe rollout/rollback strategies across lab, test range, and air-gapped environments
• Collaborate with flight software, avionics, RF/ground systems, and mission operations teams

What they're looking for

• Python development with strong language fundamentals
• Safety-critical software engineering (3+ years spacecraft or similar systems)
• Real-time data acquisition, low-latency messaging, and time-series databases
• Systems fundamentals: concurrency, networking, performance, reliability
• CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code
• Mission control UI/UX design and implementation
• Simulation and hardware-in-the-loop frameworks
• Telemetry, commanding, and spacecraft operations concepts

Likely interview questions

• Describe your experience developing safety-critical software and how you ensured reliability in previous projects.
• Walk us through your approach to designing a real-time telemetry ingestion service that must handle both low-latency operations and post-flight analysis.