Senior Supplier Development Engineer

Relativity Space • Long Beach, CA

1d

About The Position

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 Quality team is focused on embedding quality into every part of the design and production process for Terran R. Not just inspecting at the end but influencing how things are built from the start. The team embeds themselves directly within design, manufacturing, test, and launch teams to stay close to the hardware, understand constraints, and proactively shape decisions. As we move beyond initial development into production and then scaled operations, now is the time to put the right processes, controls, and inspections in place without slowing down progress. The team plays a key role in balancing risk, driving a culture of ownership, and ensuring that speed doesn’t come at the cost of reliability. Success here means building a quality system that scales with the Terran R program and Relativity as a whole. About the Role: Serve as the technical point of contact for rocket parts and assemblies, resolving manufacturing and quality issues to protect production schedules. Lead new product introduction by selecting manufacturing methods, identifying suppliers, and developing scalable processes. Conduct design for manufacturing (DFM) reviews and apply APQP principles to ensure efficient, high-quality production from early development stages. Leverage experience with Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), First Article Inspection Reports (FAIRs), and 8D problem solving. Manage supplier sourcing and evaluations, issue corrective actions, and ensure compliance with AS9100, ISO 9001, and NASA quality standards. Create and develop specifications to communicate quality and manufacturing requirements across the supply base. Analyze defect data, lead root cause investigations (e.g., 8D, PPAP, FAIR), and implement corrective actions to improve supplier performance.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, quality, or related STEM field
• You have 8+ years of experience in supplier quality or supplier development engineering, with in-depth knowledge of industry standards like AS9100, ISO 9001, and NASA quality standards and ERP/MRP system experience.
• You have a strong technical and experiential knowledge of manufacturing processes for space-quality hardware, including forming, cutting, machining, and assembly of various metals like stainless and carbon steels.
• You have experience with supplier quality processes such as Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), and First Article Inspection Reports (FAIRs) with a disciplined approach to problem solving, such as 8D methodology.
• You have experience with New Product Development and PPAP implementation.
• You are a self-starter who can define and own a process from scratch and roll it out to a diverse team, with willingness to travel up to 50% of the work week when needed.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with high-volume inspection methods and data-driven acceptance methods
• Strong knowledge of enterprise applications (i.e., PLM, ERP, MES) and proficient in data analysis
• Self-starter that has demonstrated the ability to define and own a process from scratch and roll out that process through adept communication to a diverse team
• Experience with New Product Development and PPAP implementation

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical point of contact for rocket parts and assemblies, resolving manufacturing and quality issues to protect production schedules.
• Lead new product introduction by selecting manufacturing methods, identifying suppliers, and developing scalable processes.
• Conduct design for manufacturing (DFM) reviews and apply APQP principles to ensure efficient, high-quality production from early development stages.
• Leverage experience with Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), First Article Inspection Reports (FAIRs), and 8D problem solving.
• Manage supplier sourcing and evaluations, issue corrective actions, and ensure compliance with AS9100, ISO 9001, and NASA quality standards.
• Create and develop specifications to communicate quality and manufacturing requirements across the supply base.
• Analyze defect data, lead root cause investigations (e.g., 8D, PPAP, FAIR), and implement corrective actions to improve supplier performance.

Benefits

• 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees