Principal Materials 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 Materials and NDE (Non-Destructive Evaluation) team plays a central role in enabling Terran R to fly, re-fly, and scale: developing, characterizing, and inspecting materials and processes across all parts of the vehicle. From welding and additive manufacturing to advanced composites, the team works at the intersection of innovation and execution, balancing performance and reliability with cost, quality, and schedule. As we move toward first flight and beyond, the challenges become more exciting, offering opportunities to shape how we design and develop for re-use. With ownership across products, systems, and disciplines, engineers gain broad exposure and drive key decisions across design, manufacturing, and operations.

About the Role:

The Materials Discovery Lab is a small autonomous lab which works synergistically with the Materials Engineering department. The aim is to push the frontiers of extreme environment materials that enable short- and long-term missions of space exploration. The high-performance materials can also have broad impact on big technological challenges outside aerospace where material is the limit. Our mission is to combine the fundamental science and real world requirements through deep materials expertise which will lead to unique industry leading solutions. Some of the specific areas include:

• Provide new material solutions to enable upcoming Relativity Space missions, e.g. reusable thermal protection for Terran R

• Solve grand challenges that confront the space community, e.g. heatshields for Mars and Moon missions, reusable heatshield solutions for LEO missions

• Tackle strategic areas such as carbon and ceramics to bridge long standing gaps in the thermal protection of extreme of “the extremes” such as hypersonic leading edge and engine components

You’ll be working with a small team of experienced and passionate builders who are laser focused on solving real world impactful problems. If you have the “can do” attitude and enjoy hands-on work, you’ll find the environment conducive to creative problem solving and enjoy the day-to-day fun of discovery.

As a hands-on project manager with deep subject matter expertise, you will lead day-to-day operations of the materials discovery lab. You will plan, coordinate, and facilitate the implementation that supports rapid materials prototyping and testing. You will work closely with the principal investigator (PI) on project planning, experimental designs, data acquisition and analysis, as well as training and mentoring team members to efficiently execute various projects and tasks. Another major responsibility is to supervise the acquisition, setup, operation, troubleshooting and maintenance of equipment and instruments that support materials prototyping and testing.

About You:

• Bachelor or master’s degree in Materials Science, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a relevant field

• 10+ years hands-on experience in aerospace high temperature materials development and testing

Nice to haves but not required:

• Proficiency and hands on experience in thermal/chemical/mechanical testing

• Analyzing and fabricating materials, Differential scanning calorimetry, Thermogravimetric analysis, Intron tensile testing, Laer Flash analysis, Dilatometry, Rheometry, FT-IR, X-ray diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Cryomilling, Power metallurgy, CVD/CVI operation

• Experience in project management and mentoring/training junior team members

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.

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:
$208,000—$254,000 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.

If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at [email protected].