Senior Software Engineer, Embedded

At Relativity Space, we have two audacious goals: to build the next great commercial launch company with Terran R and to become America's leading force in additive manufacturing innovation. Both contribute to our long-term vision of creating humanity’s industrial base on Mars, paving the way for interplanetary life to expand the possibilities of the human experience. This journey begins right here on Earth – where we design, build, and fly rockets to deliver customer payloads to orbit. Terran R, our medium-to-heavy lift reusable rocket, fulfills the growing demand for launch capacity, thanks to our iterative approach that accelerates design, testing, and development while minimizing costs. While our groundbreaking research and development in 3D printing pushes the boundaries of large-scale additive manufacturing.

Your journey with us is more than just a job – it’s an opportunity to shape the future of aerospace technology, additive manufacturing, and the human experience alongside a community of passionate, creative individuals. Join us on this extraordinary journey, as we work together to transform our vision into reality.

About the Team: 

The Vehicle Software team is responsible for the software on all Avionics boxes on the vehicle. This spans the operating system image, the applications running on those boxes, and software configuration and deployment. We are also responsible for the test infrastructure required to validate the software, such as the HITL and HOOTL test environments. Finally, our team supports rocket manufacturing and system test efforts starting with Avionics box testing, engine testing, stage integration and checkouts, stage qualification/hot fires, and concluding with stacked vehicle testing and launch.

About the Role:

• Design, implement, and maintain embedded software in C++ for microcontrollers in rocket systems 
• Develop software on Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) 
• Integrate with low-level hardware interfaces: SPI, I2C, UART, GPIO, interrupts, etc. 
• Implement communication protocols such as UDP, multicast, Ethernet 
• Write clean, efficient, and testable code for real-time and safety-critical applications 
• Collaborate with hardware, systems, and test engineers to support full product development lifecycle 
• Participate in code reviews, system design discussions, and debugging sessions 
• Contribute to continuous improvement of our embedded software architecture and tools 

About You:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field 
• 4+ years of experience developing embedded software with C or C++ 
• Experience with RTOS environments (FreeRTOS, ThreadX, VxWorks, or equivalent) 
• Solid understanding of microcontroller architectures and peripheral interfaces 
• Strong debugging and optimization skills for embedded systems 
• Comfortable working with hardware schematics, and test equipment (logic analyzers, power supplies, oscilloscopes  
• Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software development practices 

Nice to haves but not required:  

• Experience with space-rated systems or launch vehicles 
• Familiarity with Python or scripting tools for automation and testing 
• Proficiency with networking protocols such as UDP, Ethernet, and multicast 
• Experience developing motor control software for brushless motors including FOC (Field-Oriented Control)  
• Understanding of control theory, especially PID tuning in embedded environments 

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 rew