Senior Data Engineer

Varda Space Industries

Compensation

$133,000 - $170,000/year

El Segundo, California, United States

On-site

Posted March 18, 2026

Job Description

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

Varda is seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join our team. In this role you will be responsible for leading efforts to develop the essential data pipelines, storage, security and quality to power the organization. You will be responsible for understanding the current application ecosystem and data architecture. The knowledge of systems and data architecture will be used to engage with all functions across the enterprise to determine opportunities for process or application improvements.

You will manage the implementation of these solutions through the entire product life cycle from opportunity identification to support and sustainment. You will work cross-functionally with functional team focals across Varda to lead initiatives to enhance company processes, execution insight and infrastructure robustness. Projects will include a wide range of desired outcomes including cycle time reduction, cost reduction, improved decision making, risk reduction, and any other key operational efficiency. Your contributions will immediately impact functional operations and have an opportunity to contribute to Varda's overall growth and success. This role will report the Director of Enterprise Applications.

This is a full-time, exempt position located in our El Segundo headquarters.

Responsibilities

Design and maintain robust ELT pipelines ingesting data from ERP, CRM, PLM, QMS, and other enterprise systems into a cloud-native Lakehouse environment.
Contribute to enterprise data platform and enterprise application selection by assessing multiple external solutions and determining the appropriate make vs buy selection.
Own the physical data storage layer by defining open table format standards, partitioning strategies, and ensuring interoperability across the broader tool ecosystem (ex: Apache Iceberg).
Establish and enforce data quality frameworks, lineage tracking, and pipeline observability including SLA monitoring, proactive alerting, and production-grade logging.
Support AI/ML workflows by designing feature pipelines, clean data products, and a governed knowledge layer that keeps data semantically aligned for reliable model and agent consumption.
Partner with application engin

pythonjavagoaidataproductdesignsales