Lead, Structural Analysis Engineering (Stress, Fatigue & Damage Tolerance)
Relativity Space · Long Beach, United States · 6mo ago
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 Integrated Performance team owns the holistic view of how Terran R comes together, ensuring that every system on the vehicle and ground is capable of achieving ambitious performance, reliability, and reusability goals. The team works across the full launch system—from trajectory design and aerodynamics to reliability analysis and post-flight data review—with technical leadership influence across the entire product lifecycle. Beyond analysis, team members engage hands-on with hardware, testing, and operations, with the authority to lead and drive meaningful programmatic change.
The Integrated Analysis group accelerates Relativity’s hardware engineering through advanced analysis, life prediction, and modern tools. The team enables robust, lightweight, and reusable structures by leading the integration of fatigue, fracture, durability, and inspection considerations early in design and throughout vehicle maturation.
About the Role:
As a Structural Analysis Lead, you will provide technical leadership for the structural integrity, strength, durability, and life management of flight hardware across the vehicle. You will be responsible for defining and executing structural analysis strategies spanning static strength, fatigue and damage tolerance, fracture mechanics, and structural dynamics.
In this role, you will guide the development, verification, and certification of primary and secondary structures from early design through flight operations. You will work closely with design, materials, manufacturing, and test teams to ensure structurally robust designs that meet performance, reliability, and reusability requirements.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Tools
- Oversee a team of analysts while maintaining direct technical contribution
- Provide technical mentorship and guidance to structural analysts and engineers
- Collaborate with design, materials, manufacturing, and test teams to ensure structurally robust and manufacturable designs
- Establish and improve structural analysis standards, best practices, and verification workflows
- Develop automation and analysis tools using scripting environments such as Python or MATLAB to improve analysis efficiency
Structural Analysis Leadership
- Lead structural analysis activities for major vehicle structures across component, subsystem, and vehicle levels
- Define structural analysis methodologies, requirements, and design margins for flight-critical hardware
- Provide technical leadership across static stress, fatigue, fracture mechanics, and durability assessments
Stress & Structural Analysis
- Perform and review static and dynamic stress analyses for metallic and additively manufactured structures
- Develop and maintain finite element models using tools such as Nastran and Abaqus with pre/post environments such as Femap
- Evaluate structural margins including yield, ultimate strength, buckling, thermal stress, and dynamic response
- Support structural sizing and optimization of primary load-bearing structures
Fatigue & Damage Tolerance
- Develop fatigue life and durability predictions using SN/EN methods and fracture mechanics approaches
- Perform crack initiation and crack growth analyses using tools such as NASGRO and AFGROW
- Establish fatigue allowables, crack growth limits, inspection intervals, and life limits for flight hardware
- Translate time-domain or spectral load environments into fatigue-relevant stress histories and cumulative damage metrics
Loads, Modeling & Environments
- Translate flight, ground, acoustic, and thermal environments into structural loads and responses
- Integrate loads and environments into structural analysis and fatigue life predictions
- Support multidisciplinary analysis for vehicle-level structural performance
Test Correlation & Structural Validation
- Lead correlation of structural and fatigue analyses with qualification and durability testing
- Support structural testing, including component, subsystem, and full-scale structural tests. Investigate anomalies and structural failures and update analysis models accordingly
- Support structural life reassessment using test and flight data
About You:
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline
- Experience leading or mentoring a team (either formally or informally)
- 5+ years of experience in structural analysis, fatigue & damage tolerance, or structural life assessment
- Strong understanding of:
- Static stress analysis
- Structural mechanics
- Fatigue and Fracture mechanics
- Structural failure modes in aerospace hardware
- Proficiency with commercial finite element analysis tools such as:
- Nastran
- Abaqus
- Experience using pre/post-processing environments such as Femap
- Proficiency with fracture mechanics software such as:
- NASGRO
- AFGROW
- Experience converting time-domain or spectral loads into fatigue damage and life predictions
- Proficiency with engineering scripting or analysis languages such as Python or MATLAB
- Ability to independently scope, execute, review, and defend structural analyses
Nice to Haves, but Not Required:
- Master’s or PhD in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering
- Experience with launch vehicles, reusable aerospace systems, or flight-critical hardware
- Experience with additive manufacturing structural analysis and fatigue characterization
- Familiarity with Elastic-Plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM)
- Experience correlating structural, fatigue, or fracture predictions with test or flight data
- Prior experience defining structural design allowables or durability standards for aerospace systems
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.
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 accommodations@relativityspace.com.
Please note: Relativity Space does not accept unsolicited resumes, candidate profiles, or referrals from recruitment agencies or search firms. Any unsolicited submission - via email, our website, social media, or directly to an employee - will be deemed the property of Relativity Space, and no fee will be owed absent a current, fully executed agreement with Talent Acquisition that specifically authorizes submissions for the applicable role.