Varda Space Industries
Spacecraft Firmware Engineer, C++
About this role
Varda seeks a Spacecraft Firmware Engineer to develop reliable C++ software controlling spacecraft, satellite buses, and reentry capsules throughout their orbital missions. You'll own the complete software lifecycle—from requirements and design through testing and flight operations—ensuring mission-critical systems perform flawlessly in space.
What you'll do
- Develop reliable firmware for spacecraft and satellite bus control systems using C++
- Own all phases of software development including design, testing, and integration
- Scope projects by capturing requirements and making design trade-offs for open-ended problems
- Write bare metal, RTOS, or Linux-based software for embedded processors
- Build highly reliable and available software systems for space operations
- Perform software verification, validation, and testing to ensure system quality
What they're looking for
- C++ development with strong language fundamentals
- Real-time embedded systems and hardware/software integration
- Safety-critical software development (especially aerospace)
- Software testing, verification, and validation techniques
- RTOS and bare metal programming
- Computer architecture and operating systems knowledge
- Python or Rust programming
- Data structures and computer networking
Benefits
- Competitive salary range: $131,000–$184,000 annually
- On-site work in El Segundo, California facility
- Work on cutting-edge commercial space infrastructure
- Collaborate with veteran engineers from SpaceX and Blue Origin
- Opportunity to influence in-orbit pharmaceutical processing and reentry technology
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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
- Walk us through your experience developing firmware for safety-critical systems and how you ensured reliability.
- Describe a complex embedded systems project you owned from requirements through flight or deployment—what challenges did you face?