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Relativity Space is building Terran R, a commercial launch vehicle designed to deliver payloads to orbit. The Vehicle Software team develops the safety-critical, real-time control systems that power the rocket through all flight phases—from launch through atmospheric flight at Mach 5 to descent and landing.
As a Senior Flight Software Engineer, you will be a technical leader within the Vehicle Software team, responsible for architecting and delivering core flight software products that directly impact the Terran R program. You'll set technical standards, establish best practices, and mentor junior engineers while maintaining high autonomy over your work.
Key responsibilities include:
- Architect and deliver core flight software with focus on system and performance requirements (latency, jitter, control frequency)
- Collaborate with GNC (Guidance, Navigation, and Control) engineers to integrate complex algorithms for vehicle ascent, re-entry, descent, and landing
- Work with Embedded Software and Avionics teams to integrate sensor data (GPS, IMU, Radar) and control vehicle equipment (valves, thrust vector controls, landing grid fins)
- Develop telemetry systems that prioritize, filter, store, forward, encode/decode, and route telemetry data through ground stations and data centers
- Support development and integration of testing infrastructure including HITL (Hardware-In-The-Loop), HOOTL (Hardware-Out-Of-The-Loop), and physics/fluid simulations
- Drive team velocity by defining processes, establishing best practices, integrating modern tools, and mentoring engineers
You'll have the rare opportunity to shape the foundation of Terran R's software stack from the ground up, with code deployed and tested on rocket engines at an accelerated pace. The role requires strong computer science fundamentals and experience with high-reliability software for complex systems; aerospace background is not required.
