Head of Avionics Manufacturing

Relativity Space
Long Beach, California, United States
Posted 2 weeks ago
Posted 28 September 2026
full-time

About the Role

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 Avionics Manufacturing organization builds and tests the electronic systems that power, control, and connect every aspect of Terran R — from flight computers and sensors to wiring and integrated avionics assemblies. As we push toward first flight and beyond, this team sits at the intersection of hardware, software, and operations, and is transitioning from development into full-rate production while raising the bar on reliability, cycle time, and cross-program alignment. 

About the Role 

We're looking for a senior leader to own the strategy, organization, and delivery of avionics manufacturing across the Terran R program. This is a step beyond running a production floor — you'll define the multi-year manufacturing strategy for avionics hardware, build and lead an organization of manufacturing leaders (not just individual contributors), and be a primary voice in company-level conversations about production readiness, capacity, and risk.

You'll partner directly with executive leadership across Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, and Program Management to ensure avionics manufacturing scales in step with the broader vehicle program — and you'll be accountable for translating factory-floor reality into the kind of forward-looking, risk-adjusted narrative that shapes company-level decisions.

What You'll Own

Strategy & Organization 

  • Set the multi-year strategy for avionics manufacturing — capacity planning, make/buy decisions, automation roadmap, and organizational design — in direct partnership with VP/executive stakeholders 
  • Build, lead, and develop a multi-layered organization of manufacturing leaders spanning manufacturing engineering, functional/environmental test, and production operations 
  • Represent avionics manufacturing in company-wide program reviews, translating production data into risk exposure, timeline confidence, and resourcing recommendations for executive audiences 

Delivery 

  • Own the end-to-end manufacturing and test roadmap for all avionics hardware — from process development and test infrastructure through full-rate production and vehicle integration readiness 
  • Drive the transition from development to high-rate production while improving reliability, reducing cycle time, and holding the line on yield and quality targets 
  • Set and hold your organization accountable to schedule, yield, and quality commitments, using data to surface risk early rather than after it becomes a program-level problem 

Cross-Functional Leadership 

  • Drive alignment across design engineering, test engineering, systems engineering, vehicle integration, supply chain, and quality to ensure avionics hardware is manufacturable, testable, and deliverable at rate 
  • Champion automation, digital production tooling, and lean practices as strategic levers — not just floor-level fixes — to improve throughput and ensure traceability and compliance at scale 
  • Build the muscle for proactive escalation: surfacing anomalies and risks to leadership before they cascade, not after 

About You 

  • 5+ years in progressive leadership roles — ideally with experience leading other manufacturing leaders/managers, not just individual contributors 
  • Proven track record owning complex electro-mechanical manufacturing and test operations at the organizational level — PCBAs, wire harnesses, integrated avionics units 
  • &l

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