Staff RF Development Engineer

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 Avionics team is responsible for the full lifecycle of Terran R’s nervous system, designing, building, testing, installing, and operating the hardware that connects and controls every major electrical system on the vehicle and ground. The team’s structure intentionally combines avionics design, manufacturing, and test to enable rapid iteration and feedback loops. Engineers are deeply embedded into other functions within Relativity, working closely with propulsion, GNC, fluids, and stage engineering teams to ensure seamless integration and operation. Now is a unique time to join: you’ll get to help shape Terran R's fundamental avionics architecture and be given a high degree of ownership on components that will fly.

About the Role:

• Drive the development of the flight and ground RF & Telemetry system for our launch vehicles through all phases of the development process including design, integration, test, and launch
• Create link budgets for various vehicle RF systems
• Model antenna radiation patterns and simulate vehicle-level antenna performance
• Develop the architecture for vehicle ground and vehicle RF systems, including S and L band systems
• Select COTS parts or design custom components such as antennas, RF passives, PAs and LNAs, transmitters/receivers, and GSE
• Support regulatory and licensing activities with government and regulatory bodies such as the FCC, ITU, and USSF

About You:

• Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• 8+ years of experience in RF and telemetry system engineering
• Experience with 3 or more of the following:
  • Antenna design and modeling tools such as Ansys HFSS
  • Developing link budgets
  • Design and selection of RF passive components such as couplers and filters
  • Design and integration of RF systems consisting of radio transmitters and receivers, LNAs, PAs, couplers, filters, etc.
  • Working with RF test equipment such as spectrum analyzers, SDRs, and data recorders
• Experience communicating deeply technical topics with individuals from different disciplines

Nice to haves, but not required:

• Familiarity with telemetry standards standards such as IRIG-106
• Experience designing active RF electronics such as PAs, LNAs, and/or radio transceivers
• Software engineering fluency and experience with C++, Python, and/or MATLAB
• Experience establishing a ground station network for launch vehicles or satellite systems

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:

$189,000—$241,000 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.