Senior Supplier Development Engineer

About the Team

About the Team: The Quality team is focused on embedding quality into every part of the design and production process for Terran R. Not just inspecting at the end but influencing how things are built from the start. The team embeds themselves directly within design, manufacturing, test, and launch teams to stay close to the hardware, understand constraints, and proactively shape decisions.

As we move beyond initial development into production and then scaled operations, now is the time to put the right processes, controls, and inspections in place without slowing down progress. The team plays a key role in balancing risk, driving a culture of ownership, and ensuring that speed doesn’t come at the cost of reliability. Success here means building a quality system that scales with the Terran R program and Relativity as a whole.

• Serve as the technical point of contact for rocket parts and assemblies, resolving manufacturing and quality issues to protect production schedules.
• Lead new product introduction by selecting manufacturing methods, identifying suppliers, and developing scalable processes.
• Conduct design for manufacturing (DFM) reviews and apply APQP principles to ensure efficient, high-quality production from early development stages. Leverage experience with Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), First Article Inspection Reports (FAIRs), and 8D problem solving.
• Manage supplier sourcing and evaluations, issue corrective actions, and ensure compliance with AS9100, ISO 9001, and NASA quality standards.
• Create and develop specifications to communicate quality and manufacturing requirements across the supply base.
• Analyze defect data, lead root cause investigations (e.g., 8D, PPAP, FAIR), and implement corrective actions to improve supplier performance.

• You have 8+ years of experience in supplier quality or supplier development engineering, with in-depth knowledge of industry standards like AS9100, ISO 9001, and NASA quality standards and ERP/MRP system experience.
• You have a strong technical and experiential knowledge of manufacturing processes for space-quality hardware, including forming, cutting, machining, and assembly of various metals like stainless and carbon steels.
• You have experience with supplier quality processes such as Production Part Approval Process (PPAP), Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP), and First Article Inspection Reports (FAIRs) with a disciplined approach to problem solving, such as 8D methodology.
• You have experience with New Product Development and PPAP implementation.
• You are a self-starter who can define and own a process from scratch and roll it out to a diverse team, with willingness to travel up to 50% of the work week when needed.

• Familiarity with high-volume inspection methods and data-driven acceptance methods
• Strong knowledge of enterprise applications (i.e., PLM, ERP, MES) and proficient in data analysis
• Self-starter that has demonstrated the ability to define and own a process from scratch and roll out that process through adept communication to a diverse team
• Experience with New Product Development and PPAP implementation

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 our benefits page.

Hiring Range: $120,000 — $154,000 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.