At Relativity Space, we have two audacious goals: to build the next great commercial launch company with Terran R and to become America's leading force in additive manufacturing innovation. Both contribute to our long-term vision of creating humanity’s industrial base on Mars, paving the way for interplanetary life to expand the possibilities of the human experience. This journey begins right here on Earth – where we design, build, and fly rockets to deliver customer payloads to orbit. Terran R, our medium-to-heavy lift reusable rocket, fulfills the growing demand for launch capacity, thanks to our iterative approach that accelerates design, testing, and development while minimizing costs. While our groundbreaking research and development in 3D printing pushes the boundaries of large-scale additive manufacturing.
Your journey with us is more than just a job – it’s an opportunity to shape the future of aerospace technology, additive manufacturing, and the human experience alongside a community of passionate, creative individuals. Join us on this extraordinary journey, as we work together to transform our vision into reality.
About the Team:
The Vehicle Software team is responsible for the software on all Avionics boxes on the vehicle. This spans the operating system image, the applications running on those boxes, and software configuration and deployment. We are also responsible for the test infrastructure required to validate the software, such as the HITL and HOOTL test environments. Finally, our team supports rocket manufacturing and system test efforts starting with Avionics box testing, engine testing, stage integration and checkouts, stage qualification/hot fires, and concluding with stacked vehicle testing and launch.
About the Role:
The TRADE team is a critical enabler of launch success at Relativity. As Software Manager, you'll lead a high-impact team solving unique engineering challenges—building the processes and tools that allow us to move fast, test thoroughly, and launch with confidence. This is an opportunity to shape a team and practice that doesn't just borrow from industry best practices—it helps define them.
- Build a team from the ground up, pulling in industry standards, developer’s lessons learned, and new innovative ideas on how to make vehicle software better.
- Responsible for the testing, release, and deployment of all vehicle software including flight software, embedded software, and ground applications directly responsible for command and control of the rocket.
- Take ownership of, and continually improve, CI/CD pipelines for all vehicle software repos. Build commonality across pipelines to ensure consistent testing.
- Translate software requirements and test matrices into test procedures for HITL and HOOTL. Execute “run-for-records” on HITL and HOOTL, perform and present data reviews on test results. Scale and continuously automate testing efforts from single engine, to stage, to vehicle and launch.
About You:
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with 2+ years in technical leadership or management roles.
- Strong background in at least one of test automation, CI/CD, DevOps practices, or release engineering in a production software environment.
- Familiarity with systems integration, especially across complex software stacks involving embedded software, flight, or enterprise components.
Nice to haves but not required:
- Experience managing software deployed to hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) or real-time testbeds is a strong plus.
- Proven ability to lead teams through ambiguity, set strategic direction, and deliver scalable solutions.
- Exceptional communication skills and the ability to work across disciplines, from software to manufacturing.
- Passion for building high-performing teams and coaching engineers in technical and career growth.
- Experience in aerospace, robotics, automotive, or similarly complex embedded systems.
- Knowledge of tools and frameworks like Anaconda, Gitlab, HITL/HIL orchestration, or other simulation and test environments.
- Experience in safety-critical software validation.
At Relativity Space, we are committed to transparency and fairness in our compensation practices. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and other job-related factors.
Compensation is only one part of our total rewards package. Relativity Space offers competitive salary and equity, a generous PTO and sick leave policy, parental leave, an annual learning and development stipend, and more! To see some of the benefits & perks we offer, please visit here.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Top Skills
Relativity Space Long Beach, California, USA Office
We have two sites in Long Beach, CA's Space Beach: "The Wormhole," a 1M sq. ft. factory, once Boeing C-17's home. Nearby, "The Portal" supports Aeon R engine production for our Terran R launch vehicle.
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