Manufacturing Director jobs in Long Beach, CA

Company Overview:  

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 Manufacturing team at Relativity Space is currently deep in laying the manufacturing groundwork and process development for Terran R, our next generation, re-useable rocket. This team has a wide variety of responsibilities—from rapidly building and iterating on Aeon-R development hardware, determining the most efficient factory floor layout and operation, to developing our MES system to support production at scale. The core of this team is interfacing with the propulsion engineering team to heavily influence the design of the engine.  

Overall, this team is critical to the development, initial build & test iteration, and production builds of Aeon-R. This team pulls together the efforts of design, supply chain, propulsion, and manufacturing teams to deliver ATP-ready engines for test. To meet our goals, we will drive the product from build to ATP to delivery to the Vehicle Manufacturing team, ensuring the team can move fast while still producing high quality, well understood products. 

About the Role:  

The Director of Engine Manufacturing is accountable for the propulsion manufacturing value stream—machine shop, powder bed fusion, component build/test, and engine assembly & integration. You have purview over both manufacturing engineering and production. A high degree of proactivity, technical & operational versatility, and people skills are required to be successful in this role. You will be expected to oscillate between big picture strategy and tactical operations on a whim. Key responsibilities will include: 

• Accountable for leading and managing a diverse department of 150 employees across 2 shifts  
• Defining the strategy to transition team from low-volume development environment to high-volume production environment on short time-frame; responsible for communicating a clear, actionable plan to set team up for success 
• Standing up a scalable Engine Manufacturing Program. Building the necessary tools, reports, and reviews to ensure a data-backed story on Aeon-R’s hardware health is presented and understood by the cross-disciplinary team and leadership. 
• Driving engine build campaigns through design integration/DFM, assembly sequencing, mBOM development, build & test WO creation and execution, and test handoffs. 
• Spearhead initiatives to support more effective and efficient engine builds.  
• Develop strong working relationships with Propulsion Engineering, Supply Chain, Materials Management, Quality, and Vehicle Manufacturing.   
• Developing and mentoring propulsion manufacturing staff to meet team and company goals. 

About You:  

• Bachelor of Science degree in manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering & operations, or equivalent. 
• 10 years of experience in an operations-focused role within a high-mix environment. 
• 8 years of experience formally leading or managing a team. Minimum of 6 years of experience formally leading leaders. 
• 8 years of hands-on experience building hardware in a manufacturing environment.  
• Working knowledge of propulsion systems. 
• Extensive experience developing scalable business processes. 
• Extensive experience developing operations and production tools to optimize builds. 
• Highly collaborative, strong communication skills, and ability to navigate diverse backgrounds (engineering, technician, executive, etc.) 
• Relentless pursuit of production excellence—safety, quality, and schedule at forefront.  
• Comfortable with constructive conflict and difficult conversations, so long as it moves the business forward. 
• High degree of self-awareness and self-starting abilities; able to influence others in and outside of your organization. 

Nice to Haves, but Not Required:  

• Expert experience in PLM, ERP, and MES systems. 
• Direct experience in NPI-to-Production environments. 
• Highly organized and able to provide structure & definition. 

Relativity Space offers competitive salary and equity, a generous vacation policy, an annual L&D stipend and more! 

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.