Site Reliability Intern (El Segundo)

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 designed, built and operated in-house, including the pharmaceutical processing payloads, the capsules, the C-PICA heat shields and the satellite buses.

Varda is building products that can only be manufactured in space, from life-saving pharmaceuticals to higher-performance fiber optics. The company aims to expand the economic reach of humankind by creating both the products and the infrastructure that let space benefit life on Earth.

The team includes veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, major pharmaceutical companies and Silicon Valley. Varda was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Delian Asparouhov and is backed by investors including Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst and Also Capital.

Varda is headquartered in El Segundo, California, with offices and a production facility where its vehicles, equipment and materials are built, integrated and tested. It also has offices in Washington, DC and Huntsville, AL.

About This Role

Summer internships run from May through August, with exact dates depending on the selected student's university schedule. Internships are full-time and on-site in El Segundo, CA. Candidates must be actively enrolled in an accredited undergraduate or graduate degree program.

Site Reliability supports the infrastructure, hardware, software and services across all departments at Varda. The team keeps services running reliably and rolls out new tools at scale. Day-to-day work includes supporting team member onboarding, building new engineering areas, troubleshooting difficult system administration issues and implementing automation to scale Varda's systems and services.

Internships at Varda suit students who want to grow technically and professionally on impactful projects. Interns work on a collaborative team in a startup environment and learn from experienced aerospace professionals. Your decisions and contributions can help drive Varda's success.

Responsibilities

• Deploy and manage services in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters using Argo CD
• Assist with system patching and maintenance for internal services
• Upgrade and support Atlassian tooling (e.g., Jira, Confluence)
• Contribute to infrastructure-as-code efforts using Linux-based tooling and scripting
• Monitor service reliability and automate operations tasks to improve uptime and performance

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Hands-on experience with cloud deployment (Azure, AWS, or GCP)
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes in a lab or personal project setting
• Familiarity with CI/CD concepts or tools such as Argo CD, Jenkins or GitHub Actions
• Previous internship, research or project experience in DevOps or systems engineering

Benefits for Interns

• Paid observed holidays
• 100% company-paid medical, dental and vision insurance for employees and dependents, with FSA and employer-matched HSA options
• $120/month wellness reimbursement for gym and fitness expenses
• Sponsored One Medical memberships for employees and dependents
• $20 per pay period cell phone reimbursement
• Up to $4,000 gross-up in relocation support, if eligible
• Up to $850 commute credit through Lyft or car rental reimbursement, if eligible
• Housing stipend for interns relocating to the area
• Commuter benefit for local transportation
• Fully stocked kitchen with lunch daily and dinner twice weekly
• Company and team events, happy hours and mission-success celebrations
• Complimentary EV charging

ITAR Requirements

Varda, like all employers, must ensure its employees working in the United States are lawfully authorized to work there. Employees also have access to certain export-controlled items, so Varda only hires "U.S. persons" who may access its technology without an export license.

"U.S. person" means a U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), such as someone admitted to the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.