Senior Vehicle Structures Design Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

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 Structures and Mechanisms team is responsible for the full design, build, and test lifecycle of Terran R's integrated structures and flight mechanisms. Whether you're working on highly iterative mechanisms that move or tight-margin structures that shouldn't, you'll get hands-on hardware ownership and see the rocket coming to life on the factory floor. Both teams fall under one department, sharing design principles, tools, and an integrated approach that provides a comprehensive view of Terran R. Team members work on multiple parts, not just within a single subsystem, and are empowered to make decisions that directly impact flight hardware. Beyond first flight, you'll play a critical role in refining for manufacturability and speed.

About the Role:

To be successful in this role, you should be self-motivated, adaptable, and able to complete projects in a fast-paced environment. You will need strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate effectively with peers and leadership. You will support cross-functional trade & impact studies, assist in the coordination of changes, and facilitate the resolution of integration and development issues between engineering teams. Ideally, you have significant mechanical or integrated design experience as well as a proven track record of organizing and completing collaborative projects effectively. Your advanced CAD skills enable you to own configuration management standards for our Terran R vehicle, as well as help you mentor other design engineers across the organization. Finally, you also have the ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and strengthen our culture of inclusion.

Your responsibilities will include, but not be limited to the following:

• Designing vehicle structures at various maturity phases: conceptual to critical design
• Initial drawing creation and execute revisions due to engineering or manufacturing changes
• Ownership of the vehicle BOM configurations, mass inputs, and part release schedule
• Define and manage interfaces between vehicle subsystems using appropriate control documents & models
• Develop design process improvements via simplification or automation

About You:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or related technical discipline
• 5+ years of related experience
• Experience designing and managing large CAD assemblies and associated drawings
• Fundamental knowledge of mechanical engineering design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing
• Experience with ASME Y14.100, Y14.5, Y14.41
• Experience using NX and Teamcenter

Nice to haves but not required:

• Demonstrated development, packaging and configuration management experience on technically complex hardware products
• Fundamental knowledge of mechanical engineering design, analysis, manufacturing and testing
• Knowledge of aerospace vehicle fabrication and assembly techniques
• Demonstrated interpersonal, communication and project management skills

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.

Hiring Range:

$132,000—$181,500 USD

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 View email address on ziprecruiter.com.