Software Engineer, Operations

Relativity Space•Long Beach, CA

3h•$130,000 - $196,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Interplanetary Sciences Program is building the operations software that will optimize the mission science and innovate in how we operate the spacecraft. The software will command, monitor, and coordinate the spacecraft, its science instruments, and its communications systems across the Mars 2028 mission. At Relativity Space, we set audacious goals. The Mars 2028 mission is designed to transform how we conduct interplanetary science missions bringing AI models to run on the spacecraft in Mars orbit. The instrument suite will sense the atmosphere to inform weather models and probe the surface with Radar to understand the location of ice. The mission operations for the Mars 2028 mission will also be ground-breaking with automation across the whole stack to enable autonomous science collection meaning the spacecraft can be re-tasked to acquire follow-up observations based on analysis and inference of recent data on the flight hardware. As a Software Engineer – Operations, you will design and build the tools that mission operators, instrument teams, and external partners rely on every day from command generation and validation, to telemetry and data dissemination, to the interfaces that let outside teams safely and reliably interact with our systems. This is a high ownership and hands-on engineering role at the intersection of software, spacecraft operations, and cross-team collaboration, with real influence over how the mission is run. Operations software is the layer between a spacecraft hundreds of millions of kilometers away and the humans, instruments, and partner organizations that depend on it working correctly, every time. The tools you build will directly shape how safely and efficiently this mission commands its spacecraft, ingests its science data, and supports the instrument teams counting on us to get it right.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
3+ years of software engineering experience, ideally including some exposure to mission operations, ground systems, command and control, or other safety- or mission-critical software
Strong software fundamentals and hands-on proficiency with Python or a comparable language
Experience designing and writing automated test suites (unit, integration, and/or regression tests) for complex or safety-critical systems
Experience defining or working against external-facing interfaces or APIs (ICDs, schemas, protocol definitions) shared with other teams or organizations
Comfort working cross-functionally with engineers, operators, and external partners who may have very different technical backgrounds and priorities
Experience with agentic development tools (e.g., AI coding agents/assistants) as part of a professional software engineering workflow, including knowing when and how to verify their output in a mission-critical context

Responsibilities

Design and implement operations software: Build, test, and operate spacecraft commanding tools — including command generation, validation, sequencing, and constraint-checking software — using modern engineering practices and AI-assisted / agentic development tools to accelerate implementation without compromising rigor.
Work cross-functionally: partner with mission operations, GN&C, flight software, instrument, and ground systems teams inside Relativity Space, as well as external partners and instrument providers, to translate operational needs into working software.
Build test suites: build automated test suites and validation frameworks covering spacecraft commanding, telemetry processing, and data dissemination — including regression tests, simulation/flatsat-based validation, and hardware-in-the-loop test support — so that changes to operations software can be verified quickly and safely before they touch the mission.
Define external interfaces: define and document the interfaces (ICDs, APIs, data formats) that instrument teams and other external stakeholders use to interact with operations tools, ensuring those interfaces are clear, stable, and well-supported across the life of the mission.
Automate tooling for commanding, telemetry visualization, anomaly investigation, and data pipelines as mission needs change over time.