Software Engineer Intern

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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.

Vehicle Software About The Team The Vehicle Software (VSW) team develops the embedded software that powers Relativity’s next-generation avionics systems—from motor controllers and actuation systems to flight computers and fault-tolerant architectures. We write the firmware that runs on mission-critical and flight-critical hardware across Terran-R.

This team collaborates closely with avionics hardware, systems engineering, test, and GNC to ensure our embedded systems operate reliably from the test stand all the way through orbital flight.

About The Role

In this role, you will work alongside senior embedded and avionics engineers on real aerospace hardware. You will help develop, debug, and test software running on microcontrollers and RTOS-based systems that support critical vehicle functions. You’ll gain hands-on experience in driver development, hardware bring-up, lab testing, and integration workflows that are core to building safe and reliable aerospace systems.

About You

• Current undergraduate or graduate student pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
• Coursework or hands-on experience in embedded systems, C/C++, microcontrollers, or RTOS development
• Familiarity with digital/analog electronics fundamentals
• Experience using debugging tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD, or serial consoles
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to learn quickly in a fast-paced engineering environment
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively

Nice To Haves But Not Required

• Experience with ARM Cortex-M or similar microcontroller platforms
• Exposure to FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or other RTOS
• Experience with communication protocols such as CAN, SPI, I2C, UART, Ethernet
• Proficiency in Python for scripting, tooling, or data processing
• Prior internship or personal project involving embedded firmware

Flight Software

About The Team

The Flight Software team is responsible for architecting, developing and testing the real-time and mission-critical software that runs on the Terran R rocket. This includes software that autonomously controls all portions of the rocket from launch to reaching orbit, and entry, descent and landing. This team is at the forefront of driving Relativity Space towards our mission of a multiplanetary future.

About The Role

You'll experience developing and testing flight software, interact with Avionics and Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) teams, and hands-on interface with hardware in the Avionics lab. At Relativity, the software you develop will be a core piece of a software system that controls the entire vehicle operation and is mission critical.

You'd be a strong fit if you have a strong passion for and foundation of what it means to develop highly reliable software, following best practices around code quality and testing.

About You

• Current Undergraduate or Graduate student earning degree in Computer Science or related technical field
• Demonstrated experience working collaboratively on a complex project
• Experience with software development processes including source control, bug tracking, and design documentation
• Experience with unit/integration testing
• Experience in C/C++/Rust

Nice To Haves But Not Required

• Experience with Linux
• Experience with networking such as UDP vs TCP, DHCP, etc.
• Demonstrated experience working on software for mechanical-electrical systems (e.g. rocket, rovers, cars, robotics, etc.)

Terrestrial Software

About The Team

The Terrestrial Software team is building the foundation for an automated rocket factory and integrated launch platform. Their mission is to automate and streamline workflows across the entire lifecycle of Terran R, from raw material intake to launch operations and eventually manufacturing on Mars.

Today, that means partnering directly with teams across design, materials, manufacturing, and test and launch to design, implement, and deploy end-user enterprise-wide applications, industrial automation, data analytics infrastructure, and next-generation AI to solve real problems and accelerate progress.

Long term, the team is laying the groundwork for a modular, scalable software platform that can power highly autonomous operations on Earth and beyond. This is a team for builders and thinkers who thrive on cross-functional impact and want to shape the digital backbone of our future in space.

About The Role

• Build and test Factory, Operational, and Data software to support Terran R production and launch.
• Work with software engineers through reviews, design discussions, and pair programming.
• Learn with modern application frameworks, hardware integration and cloud infrastructure all powering end-user applications.
• Join sprint planning with engineering and work directly with users to build user-facing applications.
• Deliver a project that improves efficiency, reliability, and data-driven decisions.

About You

• Pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong in programming fundamentals with experience in modern languages (e.g., Python, Java, C++, or Go).
• Interested in building end-user applications enable manufacturing and operations.
• Collaborative, curious, and eager to learn in a fast-paced environment.

Nice To Haves But Not Required

• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Knowledge of distributed systems, databases, or real-time processing.
• Prior internship, research, or project experience in large-scale software development.
• Familiarity with manufacturing or aerospace in general.

We believe varied perspectives & backgrounds strengthen our team. Prior experience in aerospace is not required.

Stennis Space Center internships will require your own transportation.

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.

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