Vast Design Reliability Engineer at Vast leads design, verification, and validation of propulsion systems for the Haven-1 commercial space station. The role includes driving FMEA, guiding test plans, and ensuring design robustness.
Responsibilities
Technical Leadership: Guide design of the propulsion systems for a large scale space station.
Cultivate Vast's understanding of static and dynamic loads, vibrations, thermal, combustion and other propulsion considerations to drive design decisions.
Lead the technical reviews providing clear, decisive guidance of mechanical design and analysis, manufacturing drawings, test plans, concept of operations, during milestone design reviews and major risk gates.
Provide critical peer review and approval of hardware designs during design reviews, and of acceptance and qualification test campaigns
Ensure that the Vast's design process & design criteria/requirements are being followed for flight, launch, and ground support systems.
Set the standard for acceptance and qualification 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.
Design Excellence: Architect Vast’s propulsion engineering standards, design guides, and review frameworks; build tools that enable fast, confident decision-making at all levels across the company.
Develop design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches to support haven-1 design architecture
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.
Qualification
Experience in Responsible EngineeringHands-on experience designingBackground with spacecraftFamiliarity with fracture controlKnowledge of manufacturing processes
Required
Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or related Engineering discipline
6+ years of related professional work experience in responsible engineering, design ownership, systems integration, test engineering, or reliability-focused development.
Preferred
10+ years of related professional work 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 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.
