Staff Thermal Engineer

Job Description 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. 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 a team where autonomy, ownership, and impact are valued. Here, you're not just executing tasks; you're solving novel problems and helping develop a rocket, a factory, and a business from the ground up. Whether in propulsion, manufacturing, software, avionics, or corporate functions, you'll collaborate across teams, influence decisions, and see your work materialize quickly. Relativity fosters a culture of creativity and technical rigor, where your voice helps shape our collective story. This is a unique moment to leave your mark on our product, process, and culture, with Terran R gaining momentum. The most meaningful work of your career awaits. Join us. About the Team: The Integrated Performance team oversees how all components of Terran R integrate, ensuring every system on the vehicle and ground is capable of meeting our ambitious goals. The team works across the full launch system, from trajectory design and aerodynamics to reliability analysis, influencing all stages from conceptual design to post-flight review. Members engage hands-on with hardware and operations, with the authority to drive significant programmatic changes. The team spans multiple technical domains and collaborates closely with partner teams to solve complex multidisciplinary problems. It is large enough to support complex development but small enough for individual contributions to have a meaningful impact. The Thermal team predicts temperatures and designs thermal architectures for structures, fluids, components, and avionics on reusable launch vehicles. With expertise in thermodynamics and heat transfer, the team addresses thermal challenges across all phases of ground and flight operations. Using first-principles calculations, reduced-order modeling, and detailed thermal simulations, the team enables integrated vehicle designs. Collaboration with hardware engineers and other teams ensures smooth development and integration from concept to launch. About the Role: Lead the architecture, sizing, and development of thermal systems such as insulation, heaters, thermal protection, and environmental conditioning in collaboration with technical teams Perform and validate thermal analyses at the component, sub-system, and vehicle levels, including developing and automating relevant tools Guide design and development engineers in applying thermal sciences to meet system and component requirements Develop and execute tests to support thermal system development and qualification, including test article integration, instrumentation, and data analysis Support vehicle and engine thermal system development, stage testing, and flight operations About You: Bachelor's degree in engineering or a related field 5+ years of experience in thermal analysis Proficiency in component and system-level thermal and fluid analysis using tools like Sinda, Fluint, Thermal Desktop, or other FEM/FDM/FVM solvers Experience working on an integrated vehicle program Hands-on experience with testing, instrumentation, and data analysis at the component and system levels Ability to solve complex problems in collaboration with design teams Proficiency in scripting with MATLAB or Python Nice to Have: Graduate degree in engineering or related field 8+ years of experience in thermal analysis Knowledge of liquid rocket stages, engine architecture, and operations Understanding of aerodynamics and external heating during flight Experience with thermal protection system materials and sizing Experience managing the full design cycle of multiple vehicles Relativity Space values transparency and fairness. Compensation will be based on experience and qualifications. Our total rewards include competitive salary, equity, generous PTO, parental leave, an annual learning stipend, and more. For benefits details, please visit our website. Hiring Range: $176,000—$225,500 USD We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or marital status.

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