Meet Ariana Cabrera, a software engineer whose journey into the expanding space industry began just a few blocks from home.
When Ariana began searching for a new role in software engineering, the last thing she expected was to find a space company in her own backyard in the suburbs of Pennsylvania.
“I was pleasantly surprised to find out there was a local space company in the area,” she recalls. That discovery led her to join the SSC team in Horsham and the Spring House Innovation Park (SHIP), which she describes as “a bright and beautiful campus that enables close collaboration with colleagues on an everyday basis”.
In her role, Ariana focuses on maintaining and migrating production systems, moving from legacy solutions to more modern approaches that free teams from manual work.
“Our overall goal is to reduce human errors and enable efficiency across systems,” she explains. “It’s a behind-the-scenes effort with big ripple effects, touching nearly every part of operations”.
What keeps Ariana motivated is the tangible difference her team makes.
“The feeling that our team makes a difference in everyday operations at SSC is what keeps me engaged,” she says. That sense of impact is the thread that connects her daily coding tasks to the broader mission of space exploration.
For Ariana, the space industry stands out because of its pace and unpredictability.
“The most exciting aspect of working in the space industry is the never-ending demands and adaptations that are required to keep our customers happy as well as maintain our core functionality.” In other words, growth is built into the job.
Outside work, Ariana loves traveling, learning about new cultures, and experiencing the world. “I find it very rewarding to be exposed to different ideas and ways of living. It gives a unique sense of appreciation for what we often take for granted”.
Ariana’s story is a reminder that innovation happens wherever people are willing to modernize, adapt, and keep systems moving forward. From Horsham to orbit, her work shows how progress in space starts on the ground.
