At Relativity Space, we’re building rockets to serve today’s needs and tomorrow’s breakthroughs. Our Terran R vehicle will deliver customer payloads to orbit, meeting the growing demand for launch capacity. But that’s just the start. Achieving commercial success with Terran R will unlock new opportunities to advance science, exploration, and innovation, pioneering progress that reaches beyond the known.
Joining Relativity means becoming part of something where autonomy, ownership, and impact exist at every level. Here, you're not just executing tasks; you're solving problems that haven’t been solved before, helping develop a rocket, a factory, and a business from the ground up. Whether you’re in propulsion, manufacturing, software, avionics, or a corporate function, you’ll collaborate across teams, shape decisions, and see your work come to life in record time. Relativity is a place where creativity and technical rigor go hand in hand, and your voice will help define the stories we’re writing together. Now is a unique moment in time where it’s early enough to leave your mark on the product, the process, and the culture, but far enough along that Terran R is tangible and picking up momentum. The most meaningful work of your career is waiting. Join us.
About the Team:
The Propulsion team at Relativity is focused on developing and delivering highly performant and manufacturable engines for Terran R. Engineers are responsible for the entire lifecycle of their parts, from initial design through production to qualification and flight. The team fosters a culture of bottoms-up decision-making, free from technical gatekeeping, where ownership and accountability are key at all levels. But designing engines with a quarter million pounds of thrust is just the beginning. As the flight configuration enters qualification, the team is now exploring modifications for future engines, including thrust upgrades, new cycles, and design for mass production.
About the role:
As a Responsible Engineer in the Combustion Devices team, you'll have cradle-to-grave ownership of an ignition system. This is ownership that covers torch igniters, ignition initiation devices, ignition system fluids design, and integration into the main combustors.
In this role, you'll set igniter operating points, size feed circuits, own the thermal and structural analysis, release drawings, define instrumentation and sequencing for development testing, and run your own hot fires. You'll support the architecture trades for future engines and carry your system through its qualification campaign. This level of end-to-end ownership over combustion hardware is rare in the aerospace industry, where these responsibilities are typically distributed across multiple teams and organizations.
Ignition systems interface with injectors, chambers, GSE, and avionics, requiring coordination across those disciplines and direct accountability for hardware decisions throughout the product lifecycle.
Pyrotechnic ignition background and experience with solid motors, solid propellants, or initiators are relevant and highly welcomed.
About you:
- Bachelor's degree in a science or engineering field
- 2+ years of experience working in the development of propulsion components, combustion components, or energetic hardware
- Experience applying engineering fundamentals in fluids, thermodynamics, thermal, and structural analysis
- Working knowledge of fluid system sizing and metering, compressible and choked flow, cryogenic fluid flows, and transient behavior during valve sequencing
- Demonstrated ownership of hardware through design, build, and test
Nice to haves:
- Master's degree in a science or engineering field
- Torch igniter, small combustor, or igniter feed system design
- Combustion devices experience: injectors, preburners, gas generators, augmenters, or thrust chambers
- Solid propulsion background: motor and grain design, solid propellants, pyrotechnic initiators, or energetics handling
- Experience in a rocket engine development and/or test environment
- Transient fluid network modeling, CFD, or thermostructural FEA
- Valve or flow control component design
- Exposure to powder bed additive manufacturing and automation techniques
- Clear evidence of ownership from school or work experience
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.
If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at [email protected].
Please note: Relativity Space does not accept unsolicited resumes, candidate profiles, or referrals from recruitment agencies or search firms. Any unsolicited submission - via email, our website, social media, or directly to an employee - will be deemed the property of Relativity Space, and no fee will be owed absent a current, fully executed agreement with Talent Acquisition that specifically authorizes submissions for the applicable role.
Relativity Space Long Beach, California, USA Office
Relativity Space The Wormhole Office
Home to Terran R production, cutting-edge manufacturing, and advanced testing infrastructure, our headquarters in the Los Angeles metro area is shaping the future of aerospace. Designed for scalability, this facility is designed to support high-rate production and can adapt to customer demand.
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