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Job Description

Overview

Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company focused on building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems for various missions. The Spacecraft Structural Engineer II role involves contributing to the analysis, design validation, and improvements of Space Systems and Components.

Responsibilities

  • Define, process, and interpret static and dynamic ground test & flight data.
  • Perform, validate, and document structural analyses of primary and secondary vehicle structures.
  • Conduct structural and dynamic simulations, including static, modal, random vibration, buckling, and thermoelastic.
  • Collaborate with design and test engineers to iterate through design concepts and determine test requirements.
  • Define test requirements and support testing of vehicle subsystems and components.
  • Lead technical projects and programs within analysis and across disciplines.
  • Help implement new theory and tools and establish best practices.

Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or other engineering discipline.
  • Eligible to obtain and maintain a security clearance.
  • U.S. citizenship is required.
  • 2+ years of structural analysis experience in the aerospace industry.
  • Experience using NX Nastran, NX CAD, and Teamcenter packages.

Benefits

  • 401k
  • Health Insurance
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • PTO

Additional Information

  • Location: Long Beach, CA
  • Position may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, and computer work.

Benefits

401k
Health Insurance
Dental
Vision
PTO
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How this job compares in Long Beach, CA

Pay in context

At roughly $58/hr, this posting sits about 13% above the $51/hr median for welding jobs in Long Beach, CA — toward the top of a $35–$75/hr middle band drawn from 51 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 59% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. Pay that far above local median usually comes attached to something: a harder cert requirement, travel, night shift, or overtime that isn't really optional. Worth establishing which before you accept.

The local market in Long Beach, CA

We're tracking 58 other active welding openings in Long Beach, CA right now, from 18 different employers. 15 of them were added in the last week. Across California as a whole we're tracking 600 other active welding openings from 271 employers. A metro this active generally means you have real leverage — employers here are competing for the same welders. Browse every welding job in Long Beach, or widen the search to California.

Rocket Lab currently has 2 other openings live in California, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.

The most active employers in California at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are SpaceX (37), Vast (18), and Relativity Space (17). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.

Within California, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Gardena at $73/hr, Redondo Beach at $72/hr, and Pasadena at $61/hr. If you can relocate or commute, that spread is worth factoring in.

Similar openings near Long Beach, CA

Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Spacecraft Structural Engineer II figures were last recalculated when this page was built.