Senior Thermal Engineer

Relativity Space
Long Beach, CaliforniaPosted 24 February 2026

Tech Stack

Job Description

<div class="content-intro"><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">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 </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">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.</span></p></div><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span data-contrast="none">About the Team: </span></strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span class="TextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0" lang="EN-US" data-contrast="none"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0">The Interplanetary Program was </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0">established</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0"> to expand access to scientific exploration across our solar system. Its mission is to make planetary research faster, more affordable, and more capable than ever before by rethinking how science missions are designed, built, and </span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0">operated</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW23963965 BCX0">. The program aims to enable scientists to send instruments to distant worlds without decades of development or prohibitive costs. By creating a sustainable model for interplanetary exploration, we are transforming space science from an occasional event into a continuous process of discovery that accelerates knowledge, broadens participation, and inspires the next generation of explorers.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span data-contrast="none">About the Role:</span></strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span data-contrast="none">As a Senior Thermal Engineer within the Interplanetary Program at Relativity Space, you will own the development and application of the spacecraft thermal model that directly guides the design, qualification, and operation of an interplanetary spacecraft. You will define the thermal architecture from first principles, translate mission environments and operational concepts into hardware requirements, and serve as the thermal technical authority across the vehicle lifecycle. This role spans early architecture and trade studies through test correlation, flight qualification, and mission operations, and requires strong technical judgment, analytical skills, autonomy, and systems-level thinking.</span><span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":0,"335559740":257}"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span data-contrast="none">Essential D ... (truncated, view full listing at source)