Data Engineer

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.  Varda’s W-Series vehicles are built, designed, and operated by Varda in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields, and the satellite buses. 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 Data Engineer to join our team. In this role, you will support the development of data pipelines, storage, security, and quality that power the organization. You will learn and contribute to the current application ecosystem and data architecture. You will collaborate with team members across functions to help identify opportunities for process or application improvements. You will assist in the implementation of these solutions through the product life cycle from opportunity identification to support and sustainment. You will work cross-functionally with team members across Varda to support initiatives that 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 to the Director of Enterprise Applications. This is a full-time, onsite, exempt position located in our El Segundo headquarters. Responsibilities Assist in building and maintaining ELT pipelines that ingest data from ERP, CRM, PLM, QMS, and other enterprise systems. Support enterprise data platform and enterprise application evaluations by researching external solutions and documenting findings. Assist with data storage tasks, including table format standards, partitioning strategies, and interoperability across the tool ecosystem. Establish 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. Work with application engineers and functional stakeholders to help translate requirements and business logic into technical specifications and data solutions. Operate effectively within regulated environments where your pipelines will be subject to compliance and auditability requirements enforced by FDA GMP, ITAR, and DCAA. Implement and enforce modern development practices, including source control, peer review, CI/CD pipelines, and automated build/test/deploy workflows (ex, GitHub Actions). Leverage AI-assisted development tooling to accelerate delivery and improve personal productivity. Learn and apply layered data architecture patterns to organize data assets for reliability and reuse. Basic Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related fields.  3+ years of experience in enterprise integration or data engineering roles (advanced degrees count towards years of experience). Experience with cloud data warehouse or Lakehouse platforms (ex, Snowflake, Databricks). Experience with relational (SQL) and non-relational (NoSQL) databases (ex, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB) Exposure to data transformation tools (ex, dbt). Proficiency in SQL and at least one general-purpose programming language (ex, Python). Exposure to Enterprise Systems such as MRP, CRM, ERP, etc. Foundational understanding of data modeling concepts (star schema, normalization, dimensional modeling). Familiarity with source control (Git) and basic CI/CD concepts. Ability to write clean, documented code and a willingness to learn data quality testing practices. Understanding of software architecture principles, data warehousing, and ELT workflows. Capability to gather business requirements from stakeholders and take a project from initial concept to finished product. Ability to work with end users to rapidly iterate on prototype applications by solving end-user issues. Ability to translate technical concepts to non-technical audiences for stakeholders, internal and external to the organization. Preferred Skills and Qualifications Experience with database administration, including schema design, performance tuning, and query optimization. Experience interfacing with engineering and manufacturing groups to understand system designs and translations to data needs. Experience supporting AI/ML pipelines, including feature stores, training data pipelines, or model monitoring infrastructure. Experience in a start-up