Staff Software Engineer, Ground Software

Relativity Space; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 181,000 - 271,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

PTO & sick leave

Parental leave

Learning stipend

Job summary

Relativity Space is building rockets and an automated factory for Terran R. You will own the frontend platform behind the operator UI, shaping architecture and a unified design system that multiple teams rely on.

You will lead consolidation of front ends into a cohesive platform and push for high-performance, real-time data handling. The role emphasizes setting direction, mentoring engineers, and delivering robust frontends for a highly ambitious spacecraft program.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building production web apps.
• Deep TypeScript and React expertise.
• Experience owning a frontend platform or large shared codebase.
• Strong frontend performance, profiling, and UI responsiveness.

Responsibilities

• Own the frontend platform behind the operator UI, including the application shell, design system, and shared data layer.
• Define architecture and contribution model for domain teams shipping UI modules.
• Lead consolidation of multiple front ends into a single unified operator platform.
• Build for hard real-time: render live telemetry within tight safety budgets.
• Set technical direction and raise engineering quality across the org.

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

The Terrestrial Software team is building the foundation for an automated rocket factory and integrated launch platform. Their mission is to automate and streamline workflows across the entire lifecycle of Terran R, from raw material intake to launch operations and eventually manufacturing on Mars. Today, that means partnering directly with teams across design, materials, manufacturing, and test and launch to design, implement, and deploy end-user enterprise-wide applications, industrial automation, data analytics infrastructure, and next-generation AI to solve real problems and accelerate progress. Long term, the team is laying the groundwork for a modular, scalable software platform that can power highly autonomous operations on Earth and beyond. This is a team for builders and thinkers who thrive on cross-functional impact and want to shape the digital backbone of our future in space.

About The Role

• Own the frontend platform behind our operator UI — the application shell, design system, and shared data layer that every other team builds their features on -
• Define the architecture and contribution model that lets domain teams ship their own UI modules into one cohesive application
• Lead the consolidation of several separate front ends into a single, unified operator platform
• Build for hard real-time: render live hardware telemetry at high rates against strict, safety-critical performance budgets
• Set the technical direction and quality bar for frontend across the org, and raise the level of the engineers around you

About You

• Significant experience (typically 8+ years) building production web applications, with deep TypeScript and React expertise
• A track record owning a frontend platform, design system, or large shared codebase that other teams depend on
• Strong frontend performance skills: profiling, render optimization, and keeping complex UIs responsive under heavy, continuous data
• Experience architecting state management and data flow for data-intensive apps (e.g., Redux, streaming/WebSocket data, Web Workers)
• Ability to set cross-team architecture and technical direction, and mentor senior engineers

Nice To Haves But Not Required

• Real-time data visualization / charting, or industrial control, SCADA, or hardware-in-the-loop experience
• Familiarity with binary streaming protocols (WebSockets/protobuf) and offloading work to Web Workers
• Experience with a monorepo build system (Bazel) or embedding code editors (Monaco)

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

$181,000—$271,000 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].