Varda Space Industries
Thermal Protection System (TPS) Manufacturing Engineer
About this role
Varda seeks a Thermal Protection System Manufacturing Engineer to own the production processes for ablative and insulative materials protecting reentry capsules. You'll develop manufacturing specifications, bonding procedures, and quality controls for critical heatshield components, working at the intersection of materials science and aerospace production at a company already demonstrating orbital reentry capability.
What you'll do
- Own TPS manufacturing processes including ablative tile preparation, bonding, densification, and closeout operations
- Develop and maintain work instructions, process travelers, and specifications for all TPS fabrication and installation
- Implement surface preparation, adhesive application, and cure cycle procedures meeting bond strength and thermal performance requirements
- Collaborate with TPS design engineers to provide design-for-manufacturability feedback on tile geometry and tooling access
- Define inspection and verification methods for TPS bonds, surface finish, and dimensional conformance with integrated quality gates
- Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions for TPS non-conformances such as bond voids and tile cracking
What they're looking for
- Thermal protection systems (TPS) manufacturing and ablative materials (PICA, AVCOAT, SLA-561)
- Adhesive bonding processes and surface preparation methods
- Cure cycle control and environmental conditioning for advanced materials
- Engineering drawing interpretation and GD&T application to complex geometries
- Manufacturing process documentation and specification writing
- TPS inspection methods including tap testing and non-destructive evaluation
- Root cause analysis and corrective action procedures
- Aerospace or defense composite and advanced material production
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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
- Describe your hands-on experience with ablative materials like PICA or AVCOAT—what specific manufacturing challenges did you encounter and how did you solve them?
- Walk us through how you would develop a bonding process specification for a new TPS tile geometry, including surface prep, adhesive selection, and cure cycle validation.