Staff Quality Engineer

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 Launch team operates at the intersection of every major aspect of Terran R, from stages and payloads to ground systems, launch, landing, and refurbishment. The Cape is the only place where you see it all come together, offering a level of exposure and responsibility unmatched elsewhere in the program. This is where first flights happen, where history is built on top of history, and where the scale of what's underway is unlike anything in modern aerospace. The mission stays the same, but the work evolves with every milestone: from first launch to reuse, high-cadence operations, and beyond. If you're looking to define what's next in space launch and write a new playbook, not just repeat what’s already been done, this is where it happens.

About the Role:

Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for quality engineering activities across Test and Launch, establishing project goals, priorities, risk-based approaches, and completion criteria for complex and high-impact initiatives.

Own and drive improvements to in-process build verification, issue ticket workflows, as-built verification, and non-conformance management, ensuring quality processes scale with program and operational needs.

Develop, implement, and continuously improve quality processes by reviewing work instructions, establishing corrective action strategies, and creating standardized rework and repair documentation to support Test and Launch operations.

Serve as a technical quality leader and key partner to the AS9100 Quality Management System (QMS) team, helping develop, implement, and maintain policies, procedures, and quality standards relevant to Test and Launch.

Lead cross-functional resolution of complex and systemic quality issues by partnering with Test and Launch, Manufacturing, Hardware Responsible Engineering, and other technical organizations to align priorities, assess risk, and drive issues to closure.

Analyze quality data, product and process performance, and recurring non-conformances to identify systemic trends, determine root causes, and develop corrective and preventive actions that improve product reliability, process capability, and operational performance.

Establish and communicate quality strategies, technical recommendations, risks, and program-level impacts to technical leaders and management, enabling timely and informed decision-making.

Identify opportunities to improve quality engineering practices across the organization and drive the adoption of scalable processes, tools, and standards.

Mentor and provide technical guidance to quality engineers and cross-functional partners, helping develop engineering capability and raising the overall quality bar across Test and Launch.

Act as a subject matter expert for quality engineering and serve as a trusted technical resource for complex quality, process, and product issues.

About You:

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related STEM field.

10+ years of experience in quality engineering, quality management, manufacturing quality, or a related engineering discipline.

Demonstrated ability to apply engineering principles and quality methodologies to analyze complex technical issues, evaluate product and process risks, and develop effective corrective and preventive actions.

Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional projects from problem definition through implementation and sustained results, including establishing priorities, managing technical risk, and driving execution across multiple teams.

Proven ability to influence technical and operational decisions without direct authority and build alignment across engineering, manufacturing, test, launch, and quality organizations.

Strong understanding of quality systems, manufacturing processes, and product lifecycle considerations, with the ability to identify systemic issues and develop scalable solutions rather than addressing individual issues in isolation.

Ability to communicate complex technical findings, quality risks, recommendations, and program-level impacts effectively to engineers, technical leaders, and management.

Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers, influencing best practices, and raising the technical and operational quality standards of a team or organization.

Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, highly dynamic environment where priorities may shift and decisions must be made with incomplete information.

Ability to support occasional night shifts and weekend work and to travel as required by Test and Launch operations.

Nice to haves but not required:

Experience serving as a technical quality lead, subje