Staff Vehicle Fluids Engineer, COPV's

Relativity Space • Long Beach, CA

1d • Onsite

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 Stage Fluids team designs and delivers the propellant, pressurant, pneumatics, and other fluid systems that turn structures into functioning rockets. The team has full ownership across design, production, test, and flight, maintaining a holistic view of Terran R, focused not on isolated parts but integrated functionality. Working on-site at the factory means you’re never far from the hardware, enabling rapid iteration and tight feedback loops across design and manufacturing. You won’t just be handed requirements: you’ll be expected to ask the right questions, collaborate with partners across the company, and ultimately find the best solutions for Terran R.
About the Role:
You will be a part of developing the architecture for the upcoming Terran R vehicle and will be responsible for charting the company’s path for gas storage on a reusable rocket- both near term and long term.
Here are some examples of projects you could be working on:
Partnering with third party vendors in the design and analysis of gas storage COPVs
Working with other thermo-fluid engineers on vehicle gas system design and operation
Establishing test campaigns for qualification and acceptance of COPVs
Performing tests and reviewing data
Supporting integration COPVs on the rocket
Selecting, vetting, and managing vendors
Performing trade studies to improve gas storage solutions for the near future vehicles
Assessing long term COPV design and manufacturing plans

Requirements

• Undergraduate degree in engineering or technical discipline
• 8+ years of relevant technical experience
• Experience applying pressure vessel engineering fundamentals
• Experience applying knowledge of fluid and mechanical system design and operation

Nice To Haves

• Experience working with COPVs or other composite structures
• Experience in a creative and fast-paced development environment, working with autonomy
• Experience with CAD
• Experience with launch vehicle systems

Responsibilities

• Partnering with third party vendors in the design and analysis of gas storage COPVs
• Working with other thermo-fluid engineers on vehicle gas system design and operation
• Establishing test campaigns for qualification and acceptance of COPVs
• Performing tests and reviewing data
• Supporting integration COPVs on the rocket
• Selecting, vetting, and managing vendors
• Performing trade studies to improve gas storage solutions for the near future vehicles
• Assessing long term COPV design and manufacturing plans

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: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees