Staff Build Reliability Engineer

• Own Build Reliability for vehicle integration and test work centers, setting expectations for reliability, manufacturability, and build and flight readiness.
• Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, and Mission Assurance leadership to ensure robust, scalable quality and verification plans across the product lifecycle, with lessons consistently carried across programs.
• Ensure successful introduction of flight hardware by defining integration readiness criteria-including process qualification, design for manufacturability and assembly, and inspectability-and driving the retirement of risks through production ramp-up.
• Drive maturation of integration and test processes, ensuring documentation, equipment, tooling, process controls, data collection, and training support consistent and streamlined execution.
• Ensure off-nominal work is performed and documented reliably. Partner with Mission Assurance to drive risk mitigations and steer response plans to severe issues. Provide leadership and technical direction for high-visibility issues, establishing recovery plans and aligning operations, quality, and engineering on execution.
• Collect and analyze build data to identify risk and recurring issues. Lead build quality reviews, generate data-driven recommendations, and effectively influence upstream and partner teams to prioritize efforts that prevent escapes and improve vehicle reliability.
• Lead containment and root-cause investigation of high-impact vehicle issues. Ensure implementation and verification of robust corrective actions that address root cause and systemic contributors across Vast.
• Lead major cost reduction initiatives through simplification of requirements, clearer design and integration standards, streamlined inspection and process validation steps, and strengthened
• process controls.
• Mentor individuals and teams to elevate reliability capabilities across the company.

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years of experience in quality, manufacturing, reliability, or design in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability hardware environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives with executive visibility and influence technical direction across organizations.
• Excellent communication and technical leadership skills.

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Proven track record of driving systemic improvements and shaping engineering strategy.
• Deep expertise in reliability engineering, quality systems, and standards (ISO 9001, AS9100, etc.)
• Mastery of advanced reliability and quality tools (RCA, FMEA, SPC, control plans); Six Sigma Black Belt or equivalent experience preferred.
• Strong technical depth in hardware integration, assembly operations, and/or test operations

Additional Requirements:

• Ability to travel up to 10%.
• Ability to support mission-critical events outside normal working hours.

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: 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.

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.