Materials Characterization Specialist II, Chemistry and Powders NEW

Long Beach, California
Relativity Space
Job Description Job 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:

The Materials and NDE (Non-Destructive Evaluation) team plays a central role in enabling Terran R to fly, re-fly, and scale: developing, characterizing, and inspecting materials and processes across all parts of the vehicle. From welding and additive manufacturing to advanced composites, the team works at the intersection of innovation and execution, balancing performance and reliability with cost, quality, and schedule. As we move toward first flight and beyond, the challenges become more exciting, offering opportunities to shape how we design and develop for re-use. With ownership across products, systems, and disciplines, engineers gain broad exposure and drive key decisions across design, manufacturing, and operations.

About the Role:

• Own and operate the chemistry and powder characterization test areas – inert gas fusion (IGF) for O/N/H, spark OES, XRF, and particle size and shape analysis – from sample preparation through reported result
• Author and validate standard-referenced test methods and work instructions for those test areas, and establish the calibration, verification, and records schedules that hold them under AS9100 and ISO 17025
• Characterize metal powder for additive manufacturing including particle size distribution, flow behavior and morphology, and perform lot qualification and acceptance covering oxygen pickup and virgin versus reused comparison
• Own the chemistry and powder request queue, set and hold commit dates, and escalate when a method or instrument cannot meet a date, and cross-cover the thermal analysis test area with the specialist who leads it
• Train Specialist I staff and interns on the chemistry and powder equipment, and advise engineers on test selection, test purpose, and what a given method can and cannot answer for a material

About You:

• AS/BS in Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Materials Science, Metallurgy or related, or equivalent hands-on experience
• 2-5 years hands-on lab test operations or materials characterization
• Analytical chemistry background – demonstrated depth in elemental or compositional analysis, on any technique
• Evidence of having written or validated a test method, work instruction, or SOP against a consensus standard such as ASTM, and able to read a method and set up to it
• Track record of owning a technique or an area rather than executing another person’s instructions, having decided how the test was done and stood behind the result
• Technical judgment to interpret data, troubleshoot method and equipment problems, and recognize a bad result, including rejecting a number that does not hold up under schedule pressure

Nice to haves but not required:

• IGF or combustion gas analysis for oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen – LECO, Bruker, Eltra or equivalent; and/or spark OES, especially calibration, type standardization or matrix-specific setup; experience commissioning a new analyzer from installation through validated first production use
• Metal powder characterization, ideally for additive manufacturing, including powder handling and lot qualification; XRF; thermal analysis (DSC, TGA, dilatometry, laser flash); metallography and SEM sample preparation
• Familiarity with ICP-OES and ICP-MS for trace and full-spectrum chemistry, combustion carbon and sulfur, wet chemistry and gravimetric methods, and organic or contamination analysis – enough to specify the request, set detection limits and acceptance criteria, and reconcile returned data against in-house results
• Aerospace or defense lab experience; AS9100 or ISO 17025 familiarity, especially method validation

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.

Hiring Range: $38.40-$57.60 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.

If you need a reasonable accommodation, please contact us at .

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.