GNC Performance Engineer I

About the role

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 Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) and Performance teams are responsible for defining and analyzing how Terran R flies, from liftoff to landing. The work combines a variety of disciplines such as advanced modeling, orbital mechanics, software development, and dynamic systems to optimize every phase of flight. You’ll develop flight algorithms, simulate trajectories, and model Terran R’s dynamic behavior across mission profiles. Whether you're early in your career or a seasoned expert, you’ll have the opportunity to own critical pieces of the system, influence design, and see your work fly. The department is part of the Integrated Performance team, uniting key disciplines to drive performance at every stage of the mission.

About the Role:

- Carry out analysis for engineering design trades and driving design decisions based on the results.

- Implement, maintain, and improve software tooling in a variety of languages, ranging from core simulation capabilities to peripheral analysis utilities.

- Maintain, establish, and sometimes lead cross-functional collaboration with key teams across Vehicle Engineering.

About You:

- An undergraduate or graduate degree (BS/MS/PhD) in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related field with

- Prior experience doing heavy cross-functional collaboration in a fast-paced environment.

- Notable modern programming language coding experience (e.g. Python, Julia, Rust, C++).

- Demonstrated experience in taking complex analysis results and clearly communicating conclusions and recommendations to facilitate rapid decision-making.

- Familiarity with architectural design and analysis of launch vehicle or space systems.