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 Role
We’re seeking an experienced and visionary Factory Engineering Director to lead the development of next-generation manufacturing facilities to help us scale Terran R production. This role will be at the forefront of industrial innovation, helping to shape the future of space manufacturing by designing high-throughput, highly automated, and highly efficient production environments.
As a strategic leader, you will partner across design engineering, production, supply chain, and automation/tooling teams to architect factory layouts and systems that optimize flow, reduce waste, and accelerate delivery. You’ll own the end-to-end vision for how materials, information, and people move through our production systems—from dock to stock to line-side—to enable scalable, flexible, and cost-effective manufacturing.
About You
You’re a systems thinker who sees the big picture and understands how every design decision ripples across upstream and downstream operations. A clear communicator and natural influencer, you bring people together around a shared vision and drive alignment across teams. You thrive in ambiguity, operate with an entrepreneurial mindset, and are always looking for ways to take action, streamline processes, and push for continuous improvement. Above all, you’re inspired by the bold mission of space exploration and energized by the challenge of building things that have never been built before.
Key Responsibilities:
- Factory Planning & Layout Development:
Own the integrated factory layout, space utilization, utilities planning, and material logistics systems. - Industrialization Strategy:
Drive strategies for high-rate production readiness, balancing manufacturability, automation, and cost efficiency. Establish scalable design principles for factory growth and replication. - Material Flow Optimization:
Design and implement streamlined material handling systems to optimize dock-to-stock, line-side inventory delivery, and work-in-process (WIP) control. - Automation & Digital Integration:
Partner with automation and software teams to integrate robotics, AGVs, MES, and real-time analytics into the physical production environment. - Process Development & Standardization:
Lead industrial process design from concept through implementation, ensuring consistency in manufacturing infrastructure across programs. - Cross-Functional Leadership:
Collaborate with engineering, operations, quality, and facilities teams to ensure the factory design supports safe, high-quality, and efficient rocket production.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in advanced manufacturing, factory design, or industrial engineering
- Experience designing and launching greenfield or major brownfield production facilities, ideally in aerospace, automotive, or other high-complexity, high-rate environments
- Expertise in lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, or similar methodologies
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams through ambiguous, technically complex challenges
- Deep understanding of production automation technologies and material flow systems
- Experience with digital manufacturing tools (e.g., 3D layout, simulation, MES integration)
- Proven ability to scale factory systems for rapid growth and high production output
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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