Senior DevOps 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 August 2025. 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 DevOps Engineer, reporting to the Director, Ground Segment & Mission Operations. This engineer will focus on supporting the Flight Software organization. They will build the tooling, procedures, and systems that enable our software teams to deliver reliable and secure products with the speed and efficiency required to achieve our goal of launching the world’s first Artificial Gravity Space Station.

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

Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines, automating deployment, scaling, and management of both embedded and containerized applications for Flight Software Team
• Work with Flight Software Test team to schedule deployment to physical hardware test assets
• Design and implement cloud-based and cloud-native systems to orchestrate software integration and delivery (AWS and Kubernetes)
• Collaborate closely with IT, Ground Software, and other cross-functional organizations to align DevOps strategy
• Aid Flight Software Team in the acceleration of software development and delivery through tooling improvement, optimized build systems, and management of common platforms and services
• Ensure that Flight Software artifacts and releases are delivered to downstream pipelines and integrated with Ground Software systems
• Design and build the release delivery process for Flight Software to the vehicle, ensuring proper testing, attestation, validation, and secure delivery of build artifacts
• Assist in the development and management of central DevOps services such as ArgoCD, Artifactory, an internal GitHub Actions marketplace, security scanners, and other custom tooling
• Help lay the technical and cultural groundwork for a DevOps organization at Vast

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering or other engineering discipline
• 3+ years of experience coding in C++, Python, Go, or Java
• Experience building robust CI/CD pipelines with preference towards GitHub Actions and AWS
• Familiarity with build systems such as CMake, Bazel, Buck, etc. with experience optimizing build configurations for efficiency and speed
• System administrator / Linux skills and experience maintaining build servers and test assets both in the cloud and on-prem
• Experience developing and managing solutions in the cloud using IaC tools like Terraform or CloudFormation
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker / Kubernetes)
• Ability to effectively triage priorities, communicate initiatives and timelines, and promote DevOps skills and culture within a fast-paced organization

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience with scheduling and orchestrating integration tests on constrained resources such as hardware test assets or limited build servers
• Experience working with Flight Software and/or Embedded Programming teams and contexts
• Assure compliance with security and code quality standards through automated scanners applied to the codebase (SAST)
• Experience managing and/or integrating with artifact registries such as Artifactory, Nexus, or other secure storage solutions
• Experience with observability instrumentation in distributed systems (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, etc.)

Additional Requirements:

• Willingness to work occasional evenings and/or weekends to support critical mission milestones

Salary Range: California

$155,000—$190,000 USD

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Base salary will vary depending on job-related knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Salary is just one component of our comprehensive compensation package. Full-time employees also receive company equity, as well as access to a full suite of compelling benefits and perks, including: 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, flexible paid time off for exempt staff and up to 15 days of vacation for non-exempt staff, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, free catered meals and snacks and beverages, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, One Medical membership, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks.

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

Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Vast is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.