Director, Payloads Systems Integration and Test Verified today

About Varda

Varda accelerates commercial space infrastructure through in-orbit pharmaceutical processing and reliable reentry capsules. The W-Series vehicles, pharmaceutical processing payloads, reentry capsules, heat shields, and satellite buses are all built, designed, and operated by Varda in-house.

About this role

As Director of Payload Systems Integration and Test, you will lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for end-to-end mission success of a diverse portfolio of payloads, including inertial, RF, and optical sensors, communication systems, and pharmaceutical processing payloads. This role combines deep technical authority with team leadership, product definition, and customer delivery responsibility.

You will own the successful execution of multiple concurrent payload missions, delivering flight hardware that operates in orbit, survives hypersonic reentry, and returns to Earth reliably and at scale.

Your team will serve as the technical bridge between each payload and the Varda vehicle, defining interfaces, planning and executing payload integration and test campaigns, coordinating in-orbit operations, and ensuring safe recovery of payload data and hardware. You will manage day-to-day execution, hiring and headcount planning, new project scoping, and development of standard workflows and processes.

You will own and evolve the Varda Payload User Guide, defining standard interfaces and accommodations for hosted payloads, and developing a roadmap that expands the set of customers and use cases Varda can support while growing mission cadence.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the Payload Systems Integration & Test team, hiring and developing engineers across experience levels
• Own integration and test for Varda's internal pharmaceutical processing payloads: test planning, functional and process verification, contamination control, and environmental qualification of fluidic and thermal flight hardware
• Partner closely with Payload & Mechanisms development engineers on pharma payload designs, staying engaged early in the design cycle to shape testability
• Take ambiguous customer mission objectives and determine how to meet them with the existing platform, or scope the non-recurring engineering needed
• Own payload interface definition and requirements: ICDs, interface verification, and standards documentation that external customers and internal teams work from
• Plan and execute payload integration and test campaigns across both lines, including interface verification, functional testing, and environmental qualification (random vibration, thermal vacuum, EMI/EMC, shock)
• Work with the production crew building and integrating payload hardware, and establish cleanroom practices both lines depend on
• Coordinate with Vehicle Integration & Test as a sister function, sharing practices and infrastructure where appropriate
• Work with Mission Management to hit contract milestones and customer commitments, and serve as the technical face to customers through the mission lifecycle
• Support payload operations through flight, reentry, and recovery
• Establish and mature the processes, documentation, and cleanroom practices that let payload integration scale with mission cadence

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of spacecraft or aerospace hardware experience spanning integration, test, and mission execution
• Demonstrated ability to take poorly-defined technical problems and turn them into executable plans, interfaces, and requirements
• Hands-on experience planning and running environmental qualification campaigns on flight hardware
• Strong interface engineering background: ICDs, requirements flow-down, interface verification across organizational boundaries
• Experience leading engineers, including hiring and developing early-career talent
• Breadth across mechanical, thermal, fluidic, electrical, and software interfaces, with enough depth to be a credible technical backstop for the team
• Cleanroom operations and contamination control
• Customer-facing experience: scoping work, managing execution schedules, setting expectations, and negotiating technical commitments
• B.S. in a relevant engineering discipline

Preferred Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI security clearance, or eligibility to be granted one
• Test and verification experience with fluidic, thermal, or process hardware (pharmaceutical, biological, chemical, or life sciences payloads)
• Experience with payload accommodation on a hosted or rideshare platform
• Reentry, recovery, or landed-vehicle experience
• Defense or government program experience
• Experience standing up a new function or team
• M.S. in aerospace, mechanical, chemical, or systems engineering

Compensation

Salary range: $185,640 - $251,160 per year. You will be eligible for incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards. Leveling and base salary is determined by job-related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance.

Location

On-site in El Segundo, California.