Staff Design Reliability Engineer

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 isall-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 Staff Design Reliability Engineer, reporting to the Senior Manager, Design Reliability,to support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.

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

Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership: Lead the technical reviews that shape the future of artificial-gravity space habitats—providing clear, decisive guidance during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
• Oversee qualification and test completeness for flight systems, ensuring our test campaigns are robust, disciplined, and aligned with human-rated reliability.
• Bring deep engineering intuition to test campaigns, identifying risks early and helping teams converge on safe, resilient solutions.
• Evaluate complex design and operational changes, safeguarding technical integrity as the system evolves.
• Design Excellence:Serve as the architect and guardian of Vast’s engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks—tools that enable fast, confident decision-making across the company.
• Make engineering best practices accessible and actionable, especially for engineers moving rapidly under ambitious program timelines.
• Support and elevate engineering teams across the organization by bringing broad experience in design, build cycles, integration, and test.
• Turn organizational knowledge into lasting guidance by capturing lessons learned and strengthening future standards.
• Process Ownership:Build and steward the processes that ensure engineering rigor at scale—ensuring designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, and changes are consistently implemented.
• Own and continuously refine design review templates, reliability checklists, and internal design guides.
• Track design maturity and compliance across the station and vehicle architecture, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
• Build tools, frameworks, and automation that empower engineers to explore design trade-offs and risks with clarity and speed.
• Cross-Functional Influence:Work across all facets of the engineering organization to improve reliability.
• Partner with configuration and change management so that every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and fully understood.
• Partner with the internal software team to ensure system data, configuration details, and design decisions are well organized and accessible.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.
• Demonstrated experience conducting design reviews, qualification reviews, or major change assessments.
• Strong communicator and collaborative leader with high emotional intelligence, diplomacy, and the ability to influence at all levels.
• Resilient, curious, and committed to continuous learning in fast-paced or high-pressure environments.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience in Responsible Engineering, Systems Engineering, or Reliability Engineering roles 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 (e.g., Tableau).
• Knowledge of manufacturing processes, materials selection, and hardware qualification pathways.
• Strong systems-level intuition and the ability to anticipate and articulate risks early.

Additional Requirements:

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