Aerothermal Engineer II
Relativity Space
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 Integrated Performance team owns the holistic view of how Terran R comes together, ensuring that every system on the vehicle and ground is capable of achieving our ambitious objectives. The team works across the full launch system, from trajectory design and aerodynamics to reliability analysis and beyond, with direct influence on all parts of the product lifecycle, from conceptual design to post-flight data review. Beyond analysis, team members engage hands-on with hardware and operations, with the mission and authority to drive meaningful programmatic change. With a unique organizational structure, the integrated performance team spans multiple technical domains and embeds directly with partner teams to solve the hardest multi-disciplinary problems. The team operates with a rare scale: large enough to support complex development, yet small enough that individual contributors have meaningful impact.
About the Role:
- Develop and execute computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses to solve novel challenges in vehicle entry heating and supersonic retropropulsion
- Drive the design of major Terran R system elements – like fins, flaps, heat shields, and primary structure – to meet criteria for temperature and heating
- Guide and mentor responsible hardware engineers to ensure hardware meets aerothermal requirements
- Scope and develop aerothermal databases for ascent and entry, including uncertainty quantification, from multiple sources like CFD, empirical methods, and wind tunnel testing
- Size thermal protection systems (TPS) for flight
- Support re-usable TPS material development and testing
- Mature Relativity’s tools for developing and communicating aerothermal data, including custom and commercial code, databases, and data processing tools
To be successful in this role, you should be self-motivated, adaptable, and able to contribute significantly to a fast-paced, integrated vehicle program. You should also be able to resolve ambiguity and drive projects to completion. Ideally, you have significant compressible flow, CFD, thermal analysis, and conjugate heat transfer experience as well as a proven track record completing projects successfully in a highly collaborative environment.
On a weekly basis, you will be performing analysis, developing software tools, and supporting design teams. You will also use your strong organizational skills to properly manage the documentation and communication of your actions, recommendations, and decisions.
About You:
- Undergraduate degree in engineering or related field
- 2+ years relevant experience
- Proficiency in compressible flow and thermal analysis, preferably on entry vehicles
- Experience executing CFD workflows for external flow, preferably including engine plume simulation
- Experience solving cross-disciplinary design problems on integrated vehicles
- Proficiency in Python and industry-standard CFD tools like FUN3D and Star-CCM+, including use of HPC clusters
Nice to Haves, but Not Required:
- Graduate degree in engineering or related field
- 5+ years relevant experience across 1 or more program lifecycles
- Experience with thermal protection system sizing & analysis using standard tools like FIAT, CHAR, MINIVER, or LAURA
- Exposure to aerothermal instrumentation, wind tunnel and flight testing
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.
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.