Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer

Vast is developing next-generation space stations and space infrastructure using an incremental, hardware-rich, and low-cost approach. Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station to ensure a 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. 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 2027, followed by additional Haven modules. Additionally, the company recently announced Vast Satellite, a high-power satellite product line leveraging its space station components and the heritage of Haven Demo.

Headquartered in Long Beach, California, and with more than 1,000 employees and over a billion dollars in private capital, Vast has built the facilities required to manufacture and operate America’s next space station. The company plans to develop future habitats and systems for the Moon and Mars, dedicated space stations for government partners, and other crewed systems that will unlock the expanding long-term space economy.

Vast is looking for a Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer, reporting to the Director of Design Reliability, to guide the design, verification, and validation of Haven-1, the world's first commercial human-rated space station.

As a Thermal Fluids Design Reliability Engineer, you will ensure thermal fluids systems on Haven-1 are appropriately designed and function reliably, without failure, over their intended lifespan by integrating reliability principles directly into the design process. You will drive Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), guide test plan definition and review verification & validation data, and facilitate design teams to prevent failures before manufacturing. You will work closely with hardware teams to ensure build practices meet design intent, define test methodologies, and analyze field data to improve design robustness. You will be responsible for shepherding the Haven-1 thermal, environmental control, and life support systems through detailed design and transitioning the space station from design, to a built and tested station ready to host humans in space.

Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership: Guide design of thermal, environmental control, and life support systems on a large scale space station.

• Cultivate Vast's understanding of thermal and fluids analysis 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 Vasts 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 thermal fluids, environmental, and life support 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.

• 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.

• Change and Configuration management: Work across all facets of the engineering organization to improve vehicle reliability.

• Partner with configuration and change management so that every update to flight hardware is intentional, reviewed, and fully understood.

• Drive technical trades for the vehicle and enable decisions backed by strong physics based engineering rational

• Coordinate between Change Management, Risk, and Engineering teams to ensure design revisions drive continuous improvement on the vehicle

• Partner with the internal software team to ensure system data, configuration details, and design decisions are well organized and accessible.

• Risk Management: Partner with the Risk management team to identify Risk, and drive design improvements with engineering to mitigate.

• Work with Risk Management and Engineering to quantify Risk and failure probability through rigorous engineering rational

• Drive FMEA and Fault tree analysis across all engineering systems to identify and drive down risk

• Drive best practices for traceability and verification & validation of design revisions to thoroughly document risk mitigations across flight, launch, and ground support systems.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 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 Skills & Experience:

• 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.

• 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.

Pay Range: California

$162,360—$265,392 USD

We calibrate level and compensation to the selected candidate's experience and demonstrated capability. We welcome applicants across a range of experience levels to apply.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITSBase 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: medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, generous paid time off; up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff and up to 10+ days of vacation for non-exempt staff with the ability to cash-out unused vacation annually, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks. We also take pride in offering exceptional food perks, with snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge, and lunch subsidized as part of Vast’s ongoing commitment to providing high-quality meals for employees.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITYVast 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.