Relativity Space builds reusable rockets that make access to space more reliable and routine—empowering science, exploration, and innovation beyond our planet. Backed by General Catalyst, Y Combinator and Lux.
About the role
As a Senior Controls Engineer within the Interplanetary Sciences Program, you will be the technical lead for optical beam pointing and control systems that enable high-precision optical communications for our 2028 Mars Orbiter mission. You will design, develop, and implement the control algorithms that measure the subsystem orientation using advanced sensor fusion and actively steer both spacecraft attitude and beam orientation to maintain precision optical links across interplanetary distances.
What they're looking for
- An undergraduate or graduate degree (BS/MS/PhD) in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Control Systems, Physics, or a similar technical discipline with 3+ years of related experience
- Strong background in control systems design and implementation, including classical and modern control theory, state-space methods, and nonlinear control
- Experience with spacecraft guidance, navigation, and control systems for launch vehicles, satellites, or other aerospace applications
- Experience developing sensor fusion and state estimation algorithms, including Kalman filtering, observer design, or similar techniques
- Strong software development skills in at least one high-level language (e.g. C++, Rust) and at least one scripting language (e.g. Python, Matlab)
- Ability to work in a fast-paced startup environment with a high degree of autonomy and independence
More about this role
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...
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