Senior Mechanical Design Engineer, Tooling

Long Beach, California

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 Tooling and Factory Automation team sits at the intersection of design, manufacturing, and automation, making everything from large-scale structural fixtures to small tools that directly enable Terran R’s production. As a design group embedded within the manufacturing organization, we dig deep into the needs of our internal partners to understand root problems, propose solutions, and deliver hardware to help build faster, scale smarter, and work better. The team is also at the forefront of Relativity’s growing factory automation efforts, an increasingly critical part of scaling production of Terran R at existing and future facilities. You’ll have the autonomy to make decisions, field solutions, and see them in action on the factory floor. Ultimately, you’re not just designing tools or automated processes; you’re defining how rockets and factories get built.

About the Role:

The Mechanical Design Engineers are responsible for the design and development of tools and factory automation equipment that support manufacturing. The Mechanical Engineering team works closely with Design and Manufacturing, turning top-level requirements and concepts into functional delivered equipment. The Mechanical Design Engineering team brings a high level of innovation and ingenuity into the design process, as they are tasked with building out a highly automated production facility. 

  • Develop high quality development and production tooling and automation solutions for the Terran vehicle and Aeon engine programs
  • Capable of integrating concepts and principles of mechanical design and analysis of several different projects in a fast-paced environment - projects will vary in size and scale
  • Ability to interpret and apply sound design and drafting standards (ASME Y14.5) in creating tooling drawing definitions
  • Handle a wide range of technical problems and familiar with all types of material handling, assembly fixtures, off-loaders, rotisseries, test fixtures, structural weldments, environmental chambers, and custom machines
  • Close collaboration with component designers, manufacturing engineers, and integration engineering to achieve the best possible cradle to grave metrics (safety, cost, quality, cycle time, delivery, reliability, life, and maintenance/refurbishment)
  • Manage projects including vendor selection, fabrication, inspection, equipment installation, and commissioning of tooling 

About You:  

  • Bachelor of Science degree in manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering or equivalent 
  • 6+ years of work or project experience with design, build, and commissioning of tooling and fixtures for manufacturing, assembly and test 
  • Experience using CAD and FEA-based analysis software (NX and ANSYS Workbench preferred) for structural applications 
  • Experience in full-cycle project completion 
  • Experience in strategic buildout and project management of tooling supporting production 

Nice to haves but not required:  

  • Strong expertise in design for manufacturability and design for assembly including experience taking products from prototype design to production
  • Solid understanding of common manufacturing materials, GD&T, and tolerance/stack-up analysis
  • Solid understanding of common manufacturing processes and machines including mills, lathes, welding, sheet-metal bending, lifting/rigging, assembly, inspection, etc.
  • Experience with custom machine design: motors, actuators, linear rails/actuators, pneumatics, bearings, etc.

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:

$130,000 - $166,000 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.

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Relativity Space? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

How did you hear about us? *
Select...

As defined in the ITAR, “U.S. Persons” include U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (i.e., Green Card holders), and certain protected individuals (e.g., refugees/asylees, American Samoans). Please consult with a knowledgeable advisor if you are unsure whether you are a “U.S. Person.”

The person hired will have access to information and items controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), and, therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by those regulations or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license. To assist Relativity in assessing its export compliance obligations in relation to your application, please identify which statement best applies to you:

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Relativity Space’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.