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Staff Materials & Process Engineer

Relativity Space · Long Beach, CA

Level
Senior
Team
Process
Degree
Required
Experience asked
10+ years
Industry
Aerospace & defense
Posted
Today

The role in 30 seconds

A senior process role at Relativity Space (aerospace & defense) in Long Beach, CA. You’ll bring deep metallurgical and manufacturing-process expertise into the Awerx design-for-manufacturing (DFM) systems.

They ask for
10+ years · degree required
Tools it names
Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ), CNC, Machining, Injection molding

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of October 26, 2026

Process Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $120k–$171k.

Median of the low and high ends of 60 live postings that list pay, out of 97 process engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 96 other live process postings in California.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $120k–$171k, from 58 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (10+ vs 5+)

Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • Root cause 47%
  • DOE 29%
  • SPC 28%
  • ✓ Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 25%
  • ✓ New product launch 22%
  • Team leadership 22%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for CNC, Injection molding, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 10+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Process team at Relativity Space

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
    • How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

This plant: Relativity Space in Long Beach

75 other open roles at this site.

All 76 roles at Relativity Space →
Full description from Relativity SpaceAs posted on their careers site.Show

About the Role

As a Staff Materials and Process Engineer, you’ll bring deep metallurgical and manufacturing-process expertise into the Awerx design-for-manufacturing (DFM) systems. You’ll turn what you know about how metals solidify, deform, crack, and machine into the rules, models, and constraints our agents use to design and plan aerospace hardware. The focus is hybrid manufacturing. That means multi-additive routes that combine processes such as sintered metal powder and wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), and additive-plus-subtractive workflows that pair deposition with CNC finishing. Few tools reason well about these process chains today. You’ll help define how ours should, then build coupons and parts to prove it.

  • ◆Encode metallurgy and process knowledge into Awerx DFM systems as design rules, process windows, material models, and manufacturability checks, including how agents reason about multi-additive builds, process interfaces, and deposition-to-machining handoffs
  • ◆Develop process guidance for directed energy deposition (WAAM and other DED), CNC machining, and their combination, covering near-net-shape allowances, fixturing, distortion, and inspection access
  • ◆Characterize how process route drives microstructure, residual stress, defects, and properties in nickel superalloys, copper alloys, aluminum, and titanium, and build the materials and process datasets the agents depend on, with clear provenance and uncertainty
  • ◆Plan and run validation programs hands-on in lab and shop environments, including coupons, test articles, heat treatment, NDE, metallography, and mechanical testing, to confirm or correct what the tools predict
  • ◆Lead materials and process qualification of hybrid-manufactured hardware, including qualification plans, process controls, and statistically based design allowables in line with NAVSEA

requirements

and MMPDS methodology

  • ✓Collaborate with software engineers, designers, Relativity’s production, materials, and quality teams, and outside suppliers to specify and review tool features, evaluate agent-generated designs and process plans, and turn tacit shop knowledge and recurring failure modes into clear, explicit constraints

requirements

  • ✓Proficiency in Python or a similar language for data analysis and scripting

Nice to haves but not required

  • ✓PhD in Materials Science, Metallurgy, or a related field
  • ✓Experience with sintered-powder routes (binder jet, metal injection molding, press-and-sinter) or laser powder bed fusion, including multi-material or bimetallic interfaces such as copper-to-superalloy transitions
  • ✓Experience with ICME, CALPHAD, or thermo-mechanical process simulation for additive manufacturing, or with CAM and deposition path planning
  • ✓Experience qualifying additive parts for flight under NASA-STD-6030 or comparable standards, or applying machine learning to materials or process data

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.

Show full 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

Awerx is a team within Relativity Space building agentic design tools for aerospace. The team focuses on agentic mechanical engineering and advanced manufacturing: systems that reason about geometry, materials, and process alongside the engineers who use them. The goal is design tools that produce parts that are not just analyzable, but buildable, qualifiable, and right the first time. You’ll work where software meets hardware, turning hard-won shop-floor knowledge into tools that change how aerospace hardware gets designed and built.

This role requires on-site presence at least three days per week, with flexibility to work remotely when the work allows. Much of the work is hands-on and best done alongside the engineers and hardware it supports.

About You

  • •Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Metallurgy, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field
  • •10+ years of materials and process engineering experience on aerospace or other high-reliability metal hardware
  • •Expertise in physical metallurgy across nickel superalloys, copper alloys, aluminum, and titanium, including solidification, phase transformations, heat treatment, and defect formation
  • •Hands-on experience developing or qualifying directed energy deposition processes (WAAM, laser DED, or electron-beam DED) and integrating them with CNC machining
  • •Experience designing and running test programs (coupons, metallography, NDE, mechanical testing) and generating statistically based design allowables (A- and B-basis) to NAVSEA, MMPDS, or comparable

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