Principal Site Reliability Engineer

About Varda

Low Earth orbit is open for business. Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules.

From life-saving pharmaceuticals to more powerful fiber optics, there is a world of products used on Earth today that can only be manufactured in space. Varda is accelerating innovation in the orbital economy by creating both the products and infrastructure needed so space can directly benefit life on Earth. Our mission is to expand the economic bounds of humankind.

Our team is uniquely suited to accomplishing this goal, with leadership and staff comprised of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley. Varda was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov with significant backing from world class investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, and Also Capital.

Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, where we have offices and a production facility where our vehicles, equipment, and materials are built, integrated, and tested. Varda also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL.

Join Varda, and work to create a bustling in-space ecosystem.

About This Role

As a Principal Site Reliability Engineer, you will help set the technical vision and strategy for reliability across spacecraft, ground systems, and enterprise platforms. You’ll define standards, mentor senior engineers, and drive cross-organizational initiatives to ensure systems are highly operable, secure, and mission-ready. This role combines deep technical expertise with the ability to influence architectural direction at the company level.

Responsibilities

• Lead and contribute hands-on to the deployment, maintenance, and operations of mission-critical applications and infrastructure supporting spacecraft, ground systems, and company-wide platforms.

• Design, execute, and manage highly scalable, reliable, and operable software and infrastructure platforms, applying Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles to drive automation, consistency, and repeatability across Kubernetes environments.

• Collaborate closely with software and hardware teams to align reliability best practices, CI/CD pipelines, and compliance with their workflows, enabling faster, more secure deployments for mission-critical systems.

• Anticipate and address reliability risks, capacity challenges, and performance bottlenecks; develop long-term strategies in partnership with leadership.

• Rotate through the team’s on-call schedule to keep critical systems healthy and responsive.

• Occasionally travel to customer sites and other Varda locations to troubleshoot, deploy, or test critical infrastructure.

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in SRE, DevOps, or systems engineering, including leadership of large-scale, mission-critical systems.

• Experience leading technical direction and architecture for large-scale systems

• Hands-on experience with observability stacks and telemetry pipelines—including metrics collection, alerting, and dashboards—for Linux systems and Kubernetes workloads (e.g., Prometheus and Grafana).

• Strong background in systems architecture and software-defined networking (VPC, subnets, firewalls, VPNs, etc.).

• Proficiency in automation and scripting with Python, Bash, or similar languages

• Positive and strong communication skills, both written and oral

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Expertise in time-series databases (e.g., InfluxDB) for large-scale telemetry pipeline.

• Expertise in provisioning and managing scalable Azure cloud infrastructure using native tools and best practices (Azure GCC High preferred).

• Experience with IaC tools like Terraform, and Ansible and CI/CD systems like Git and ArgoCD

• Experience building and maintaining dynamic system configurations with templating frameworks such as YAML, and Helm.
• Strong understanding of Linux systems, containerization technologies, and Kubernetes internals

Pay Range

• Senior Site Reliability Engineer: 153,000.00 - $185,00.00/per year
• This role is on-site in El Segundo, CA
• Leveling and base salary is determined by job-related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance
• You will be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards

Varda Space Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, martial status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.

Benefits

Varda offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support health, financial well‑being, and a high‑quality workplace experience. Below is an overview of what full‑time employees receive (at this time, interns receive a subset of benefits):

Health & Wellness

• Flexible PTO policy + 12 paid holidays
• 100% company-paid Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance plans for employees and dependents with FSA and employer-matched HSA options
• Voluntary accident, hospital, critical illness, and pet insurance
• $120/month wellness reimbursement for gym and fitness expenses
• 12 weeks of parental leave (with supplemental disability leave for CA mothers)
• Family building, pregnancy, parenting and menopause benefits via Maven Clinic
• Sponsored One Medical memberships for employees and their dependents

Financial & Retirement

• Substantial incentive equity in a fully funded space start-up
• 401(k) retirement plan with 6% employer match (immediately vested)
• $20/pay period cell phone reimbursement
• Relocation support for new hires, if needed

Workplace Experience & Perks

• Fully stocked kitchen with lunch provided daily and dinner provided twice weekly
• Company and team-bonding events, happy hours and mission-success celebrations
• Complimentary EV charging
• Dog-friendly office space 🐕

ITAR Requirements

Varda, like all employers, must ensure that its employees working in the United States are lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. Additionally, our employees are exposed to and have access to certain export-controlled items. At present, some of our technology to which employees have access requires a license to be exported to individuals other than “U.S. Persons” as defined in U.S. export regulations. Because our employees are provided access to export-controlled items, our current policy is to only hire “U.S. persons” who are permitted to have access to our technology without an export license.

“US person” means: U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) (i.e., individual admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum in the U.S.)

Learn more about the ITAR here.

E-Verify Statement

Varda Space Industries, Inc. participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program. The E-Verify program is an Internet-based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E-Verify program.

E-Verify Notice Right To Work Notice

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