Mission Operations Engineer II
Long Beach · USD 112,000-159,000 · 1+ years experience · Full-time · Onsite · Posted Oct 7, 2026
At a glance
- Experience
- 1+ years experience
- Employment
- Full-time
- Workplace
- Onsite
- Location
- Long Beach
- Salary
- USD 112,000-159,000 · Base salary
About the role
- Vast is looking for a Level 2 Mission Operations Engineer reporting to the Senior Manager of Crew Operations & Training.
- The role supports the development of systems required to enable and execute the delivery of crew operations, flight controller, and crew training programs needed for human-rated space stations.
- The engineer is responsible for planning and successfully implementing crew operations and technical training for spacecraft missions.
Responsibilities
- Develop technical crew training materials that serve both experienced government crew members and private customers new to spaceflight operations
- Develop technical training materials across all vehicle subsystems for flight controllers who will be operating the Haven-1 station
- Assist execution of training simulations, including scenario construction, scripting and automation, testing and troubleshooting
- Assist planning end-to-end training flows and execution of technical training events in support of the certification of both astronaut crew members and members of the flight control team
- Develop scalable human-in-the-loop testing processes for the verification and validation of human interface requirements
- Execute task analysis and human-in-the-loop testing for the development of crew operations, including ownership of the development and testing of all crew-facing procedures
- Support as a subject matter expert on human operation of a safety-critical system across all engineering disciplines such as analysis of crew loads, identification of human error risks and hazard controls
- Provide operational support as the operations expert in planning for and execution of pre-flight testing and checkouts to ensure training systems, spacecraft, and ground systems are capable
- Work closely with Mission Management to ensure customer requirements are translated to a Concept of Operations that balances all needs
- Train for, certify, and execute as an Operator supporting Vast's missions for uncrewed vehicle commissioning, uncrewed and crewed on-orbit operations, anomaly resolution, and final de-orbit of spacecraft
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace, mechanical, software engineering, or other engineering discipline
- 1+ years working in human factors engineering, human systems integration, human in the loop testing, or user research and usability testing, preferably in a safety-critical industry such as human spaceflight
- Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with other engineering disciplines
- Demonstrated ability to critically think in high stress environments and rapidly evolving situations
- Ability to disseminate critical engineering & technical information effectively and clearly
- Strong communication, technical writing, and presentation development and delivery skills
- Willing to support 24/7 operations during mission critical phases
Preferred qualifications
- Experience in human spaceflight mission operations
- Experience in crew and flight control team technical training development and execution/delivery
- Master's degree in a technical field
- 2+ years of experience supporting systems and processes to perform human in the loop testing, and/or complex real-time operations, and/or training development and delivery for an aerospace system
- Technical knowledge in spacecraft systems engineering
- Technical knowledge in Space-to-Ground Communication Systems
- Software Engineering and Language Skills
- Proficient at using command line interfaces and scripting languages associated with spaceflight ground systems
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents
- Generous paid time off
- Paid parental leave
- Short and long-term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- 401(k) retirement plan
- ClassPass credits
- Personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health
- Free snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals
- Subsidized lunch
Workplace
- Ability to travel up to 20% of the time
Skills
- Git
- C++
- Golang
- Markdown
- JavaScript
- React
- Matlab
- Python
- Octave
- Databases
- Cloud
