At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. We are building artificial gravity space stations, allowing long-term stays in space without the adverse effects of zero-gravity. Our initial crewed space habitat will be Haven-1, scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station when it launches into low-Earth orbit in 2026. It is part of our stepping stone approach to continuous human presence in LEO. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.
Vast is looking for a Senior/Staff Build Reliability Engineer (Avionics), reporting to the Principal Build Reliability Engineer, to support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.
Final leveling will be determined based on experience and qualifications. In this role, you will work at the intersection of design, manufacturing, integration, and test to ensure that our space systems meet the highest standards of safety, quality, and performance.
This will be a full-time, exempt position at our Long Beach location.
Responsibilities
- Own build reliability for multiple avionics assemblies, hardware families, and work centers, serving as a technical leader who shapes expectations for reliability and build and flight readiness.
- Partner with other core teams to ensure robust quality plans across all stages of the product lifecycle at Vast, ensuring designs and processes are validated and controlled and lessons carried across programs.
- Ensure successful introduction of flight hardware by establishing readiness criteria and evaluations and leading the retirement of build risks ahead of production.
- Develop processes and procedures necessary for reliable production of flight hardware, and drive documentation, equipment, tooling, controls, and training readiness.
- Analyze build issues and data for risk and recurrence; ensure off-nominal work is performed and documented reliably. Partner with Mission Assurance to drive risk mitigations, and steer response plans to severe issues.
- Provide leadership and technical direction for high-visibility issues, establishing recovery plans and aligning operations, quality, and engineering on execution.
- Conduct build quality reviews, generate data-driven recommendations, and effectively influence partner teams to prioritize efforts that prevent escapes and improve reliability.
- Lead and provide expert guidance on complex root-cause investigations. Lead implementation and verification of corrective actions, ensuring systemic contributors are identified and actioned across Vast.
- Lead major cost reduction initiatives through simplification of requirements, clearer design standards, streamlining of inspection and process validation steps, and introduction of enhanced process controls.
- Mentor engineers, leaders, and others to develop reliability capabilities across the company.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in an engineering specialty or equivalent experience
- Senior: 6+ years of experience in quality, manufacturing, reliability, or design in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability hardware environments | Staff: 10+ years
- Exceptional communication and leadership skills with the ability to influence at all organizational levels and work collaboratively in fast-paced environments. Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives with executive visibility.
Preferred Skills & Experience
- Detail-oriented mindset and a proactive approach to problem prevention. Proven track record of driving systemic improvements and shaping engineering strategy.
- Expertise with common reliability and quality tools (RCA, FMEA, SPC, control plans). Black Belt Six Sigma Certification or similar is a plus.
- Demonstrated success leading complex investigations and implementing systemic corrective actions. Expertise with common reliability and quality tools (RCA, FMEA, SPC, control plans).
- Deep expertise in reliability engineering, quality systems, and standards (ISO 9001, AS9100, etc.)
- Strong technical depth Avionics design, manufacturing, integration, and/or test
Additional Requirements
- Ability to travel up to 10%
- Ability to support mission-critical events outside normal working hours
Pay Range:
- Senior Build Reliability Engineer: $135,800 - $176,400
- Staff Build Reliability Engineer: $159,100 - $205,800
U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS
The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Top Skills
What We Do
Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches in 2026, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030.
With more than 1,000 employees at its Long Beach, California headquarters and over a billion dollars in private capital invested, Vast has built the facilities required to manufacture and operate America’s next space station. The company plans to develop future habitats for the Moon and Mars, dedicated space stations for government partners, and other crewed systems that will unlock the expanding long-term space economy.
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