Staff Additive Welding Engineer

Relativity Space; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 226,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation and equity

PTO and sick leave

Parental leave

Learning and development stipend

Job summary

Relativity Space is seeking a senior engineer to lead the industrialization of additive welding for flight hardware. You will own the transition from development to production, defining process architecture, controls, and qualification strategies to scale new technologies.

You’ll guide cross-functional teams, implement data-driven process control, and push manufacturing capabilities toward higher throughput, reliability, and quality.

Qualifications

• Experience with Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) additive manufacturing.
• Robotic welding systems experience required.
• Working knowledge of industrial automation and control integration.
• Attention to detail and drive to push technologies beyond limits.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills for process efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Lead the industrialization of additive weld technologies for flight hardware.
• Own the transition from development to production, defining process architecture and readiness.
• Define data-driven process control strategies and statistical methods for stability.
• Serve as technical authority for additive welding and manufacturing across teams.
• Drive maturation and deployment of new development technologies into production.
• Establish scalable pathways from innovation to production balancing performance and manufacturability.
• Influence cross-functional teams to deliver measurable improvements in quality and capability.

Skills

GMAW Additive

Robotic welding

Industrial automation

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Welding Engineering

Tools

Fronius Weld systems

Job description

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

Relativity Space pioneered large-scale additive manufacturing with our Terran 1 rocket, the largest 3D-printed object to fly. Now a distinct business unit within Relativity, Horizon Manufacturing Technologies is advancing next-generation manufacturing for aerospace and beyond. The team operates at the frontier of manufacturing innovation, where creativity meets capability. This is an environment where cutting-edge R&D is put into production, industrializing advanced manufacturing capabilities to solve customer problems. You’ll work alongside welders, robotics engineers, data scientists, and systems engineers at the intersection of hardware and software, creating an end-to-end additive manufacturing platform that serves a wide variety of applications. From exploring new materials to unlocking faster print speeds, to designing complex, organic geometries that can’t be built any other way, it’s high-impact work that sets the foundation for the future of advanced manufacturing.

About The Role

• Lead the industrialization of additive weld technologies, translating development capabilities into robust, repeatable, and production-ready manufacturing processes for flight hardware.
• Own the technical transition from development to production, establishing the process architecture, controls, qualification strategy, and manufacturing readiness required to realize new technologies at scale.
• Define and implement data-driven process control strategies, including process baselines, control limits, variation studies, and statistical methods to establish stable, capable, and repeatable production processes.
• Serve as a technical authority for additive welding and manufacturing, guiding cross-functional teams through complex processes, equipment, materials, and production challenges while establishing the technical direction for next-generation capabilities.
• Lead technology maturation and integration, identifying promising development technologies and driving their evaluation, qualification, and deployment into production manufacturing systems.
• Establish scalable pathways from innovation to production, balancing technical performance, manufacturability, reliability, automation, and operational requirements to accelerate adoption of new additive manufacturing capabilities.
• Influence cross-functional engineering development teams, aligning development priorities with product requirements and ensuring emerging technologies deliver measurable improvements to production capability, quality, and performance.

About You

• Bachelor’s degree in Welding Engineering.
• 5+ years of hands‑on experience with Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) Additive Manufacturing.
• Proven experience working with robotic welding systems and a working knowledge of industrial automation and control integration.
• A sharp attention to detail and a drive to push technologies beyond their current limits.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills with a focus on process efficiency and quality enhancement.

Nice To Haves, But Not Required

• A background in materials science with an understanding of metallurgical behavior in weld applications.
• Expert understanding of Fronius Weld systems
• Experience in developing process controls for cladding operations.
• Proficiency in process monitoring, data analytics, and using data to drive closed‑loop control strategies.

At Relativity Space, we are committed to transparency and fairness in our compensation practices. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and other job-related factors.

Compensation is only one part of our total rewards package. 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.

Hiring Range

$150,000—$226,000 USD

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at [e-mail].