Structures Design Engineer II

Company Overview:  

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 Structures team at Relativity is responsible for the design, analysis, testing, and manufacturing our launch vehicle integrated structures, as well as flight mechanisms. As a part of this team, you will be given hardware ownership for the full product lifecycle, and get the opportunity to conveniently validate your hardware through testing at our factory of the future, headquartered in Long Beach, CA. Unique to Relativity, you will get to work across many teams to leverage Relativity's first-of-its-kind 3D printing technology to develop world-class integrated launch vehicles. Overall, this team is critical to the launch success of Terran 1 & Terran R, among many other firsts! 

About the Role: 

The scope of work encompasses a full design cycle, including conceptualization, design, analysis, manufacturing and testing for primary and secondary structures related to Thrust Structure, Propellant Tanks, Interstage or Fairing, to name a few. You will need to think creatively and leverage innovation to reduce mass, parts, processes and tooling required.

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

• Innovative conceptualization of structural load path, design for complex structures and adjacent system packaging.
• Review of static & dynamic load inputs, material properties & test as well as structural systems & subsystems requirements.
• Analysis and sizing of flight structures to ensure timely design reviews and drawing release.
• Develop and support hardware test campaigns, including test integration, operation and result evaluation.
• Support manufacturing process development.

In order to be successful in this role, you must be someone who is self-motivated, adaptable and is able to lead your own projects to completion in a fast-paced environment. Ideally, you have significant mechanical or structural design experience and a proven track record completing collaborative projects effectively.

On a weekly basis, you will be designing flight components for our upcoming Terran R vehicle using NX/TeamCenter, performing analysis using Nastran, ANSYS and/or hand calculations, creating and releasing drawings as well as supporting fabrication of your components. You will own your design from requirements to production. You will also use your strong organizational skills to properly document your work and present your recommendations when decisions are needed.

About You:  

• 2+ years of experience in a design engineering role.
• Bachelor’s degree in related discipline.
• Significant experience with industry-standard CAD packages such as NX, Creo, or Solidworks
• Working knowledge of structural analysis (hand calculation, Finite Elements Methods and industry tools) and test
• Fundamental knowledge of structures strength, stability and fatigue failure mechanisms.
• Fundamental knowledge of additive and traditional manufacturing processes
• Full life cycle project ownership experience

Nice to haves but not required:  

• 3+ years of mechanical or structural design & analysis experience.
• Extensive experience with NX/TeamCenter.
• Expertise using Nastran and ANSYS.
• Experience with GD&T and drafting.

Relativity Space offers competitive salary and equity, a generous vacation policy, an annual L&D stipend and more! 

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.