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Avionics Hardware Development Engineer Verified today

Varda Space · El Segundo, CA · Electronics · first seen 2026-10-08
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About Varda

Varda is building commercial space infrastructure including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing and reentry capsules. The company designs and operates W-Series vehicles end-to-end, including flight computers, heat shields, satellite buses, and processing payloads.

The Role

As an Avionics Hardware Development Engineer, you will design, manufacture, test, and represent electrical components used to fly and manufacture products in space. You'll have immense ownership of hardware through all lifecycle phases and deliver products that go to space and back.

You will stress components above and beyond expected flight levels and investigate failures thoroughly, building quality electronics proven in orbit.

Responsibilities

  • Develop mixed-signal designs and shepherd them through the full product lifecycle including requirements definition, design, development, qualification, and release to production.
  • Support avionics architecture trade studies, analyses, performance characterization, specification, device selection, and roadmap direction.
  • Support risk analyses, design for test/manufacture/cost, and root-cause analysis of test discrepancies.
  • Design electrical circuit boards.
  • Collaborate on mechanical design fit, form, and function.
  • Functionally test hardware through thermal, vibration, shock, TVAC, and EMI.
  • Write vehicle level integration test plans to validate for flight.
  • Perform root cause analysis for test failures and develop mitigation strategies for flight risks.
  • Work on avionics products including flight computers, networking systems, star trackers, reaction wheels, magnetorquers, payload controllers, battery packs, solar chargers, RF transceivers and decoders.

Basic Qualifications

  • B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related field.
  • 3+ years of direct experience designing electronics hardware including schematic capture, PCB layout, and board bring-up.
  • Demonstrated experience designing flight hardware circuit boards from schematic capture through functional test on programs where hardware physically flew or was qualified for flight.
  • Strong sense of ownership and responsibility for components you contribute towards.
  • Strong hands-on experience with oscilloscopes, function generators, benchtop digital multimeters, and power supplies.
  • Understanding of analog/digital filtering, mixed-signal circuit design, analysis, and test.
  • Knowledge of signal integrity, power, grounding, and general board layout principles.
  • Experience programming in Python, MATLAB, or another scripting/data analysis language.
  • Understanding of sensor and actuator technologies including RTDs, pressure transducers, DC brushless motors, solenoid valves, thermocouples, hydraulic servo valves, LVDT, RVDT, and rotary/linear encoders.