Principal Mechanical Engineer, Factory Automation

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
• 15+ 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:

$185,000—$277,000 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 accommodations@relativityspace.com.

Please note: Relativity Space does not accept unsolicited resumes, candidate profiles, or referrals from recruitment agencies or search firms. Any unsolicited submission - via email, our website, social media, or directly to an employee - will be deemed the property of Relativity Space, and no fee will be owed absent a current, fully executed agreement with Talent Acquisition that specifically authorizes submissions for the applicable role.