Avionics Design Reliability Engineer New Long Beach, California, United States

Overview

Vast is looking for an Avionics Design Reliability Engineer , reporting to the Sr. Manager of Design Reliability , to guide the design, verification, and validation of Haven-1, the world’s first commercial human-rated space station. This role ensures avionics, RF, and power systems are designed for reliability across their lifespan by integrating reliability principles into the design process.

You will drive Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), guide test plan definition and review verification & validation data, and facilitate design teams to prevent failures before manufacturing. You will work closely with hardware teams to ensure build practices meet design intent, define test methodologies, and analyze field data to improve design robustness. You will shepherd Haven-1 avionics, RF, and power systems through detailed design and transition the space station from design to a built and tested station ready to host humans in space.

This is a full-time , exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

Technical Leadership and Responsibilities:

• Guide design of avionics, RF, and power systems on a large-scale space station.
• Advance understanding of electrical, RF, and power system analysis to drive design decisions.
• Lead technical reviews, providing clear guidance on mechanical design, drawings, test plans, and operations during milestone reviews and risk gates.
• Provide critical peer review and approval of hardware designs during design reviews and of acceptance and qualification test campaigns.
• Ensure the design process and criteria are followed for flight, launch, and ground support systems.
• Set the standard for acceptance and qualification test completeness for flight systems with robust, disciplined test campaigns aligned with human-rated reliability.
• Identify risks early through test campaigns and guide teams toward safe, resilient solutions.
• Architect Vast’s avionics, RF, power, and EMI/EMC standards, design guides, and review frameworks; build tools to enable fast, confident decision-making.
• Develop design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches to support haven-1 design architecture.
• Make engineering best practices accessible, especially under ambitious program timelines.
• Support and elevate engineering teams with broad experience in design, build cycles, integration, and test.
• Capture lessons learned to strengthen future standards.

Process Ownership:

• Build and steward processes that ensure engineering rigor at scale—designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, and changes are implemented consistently.
• Own and refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal design guides.
• Track design maturity and compliance across station and vehicle architecture to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• Build tools, frameworks, and automation that empower engineers to explore design trade-offs with speed and clarity.

Change and Configuration Management:

• Improve vehicle reliability across engineering facets.
• Partner with configuration and change management to ensure every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and understood.
• Drive technical trades backed by physics-based engineering rationales.
• Coordinate between Change Management, Risk, and Engineering to drive continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with internal software to organize and access system data, configuration details, and design decisions.
• Work with Risk Management to identify risks and drive design improvements to mitigate them.
• Quantify risk and failure probability through rigorous engineering rationale.
• Lead FMEA and fault tree analysis across systems to reduce risk and document mitigations.
• Promote traceability and verification of design revisions for flight, launch, and ground support systems.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or related engineering discipline.
• 6+ years of related professional experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years of related professional experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.
• Experience in Responsible Engineering, Systems Engineering, Office of the Chief Engineer, or Reliability Engineering on complex aerospace systems.
• Hands-on experience designing, assembling, integrating, or testing hardware.
• Background with spacecraft, aircraft, launch vehicles, or other mission- or safety-critical systems.
• Familiarity with fracture control, reliability methodologies, or human-rated hardware standards.
• Experience creating engineering standards, review templates, or technical guidance frameworks.
• Strong scripting and data analysis skills (Python, MATLAB, Excel) and familiarity with visualization tools (Tableau).
• Knowledge of manufacturing processes, materials selection, and hardware qualification pathways.
• Strong systems-level intuition and ability to anticipate risks early.

Additional Requirements:

• Willingness to work overtime or weekends to support critical mission milestones.

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: California — $162,360 - $265,392 USD

Base salary will vary based on knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Full-time employees receive company equity and a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, parental leave, disability and life insurance, 401(k), and other perks.

Equal Opportunity

Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment is based on merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced by protected status.

Note : This refined description removes non-job-content sections and applicant-processing information while preserving core responsibilities, qualifications, and compensation context.