Senior Mechanical Hardware Reliability Engineer

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Own the reliability strategy for mission-critical mechanical subsystems or entire systems, such as the Dropbox or delivery pod, applying Design-for-Reliability (DfR) and Physics-of-Failure (PoF) principles.
• Define system reliability targets, life requirements, and release criteria based on safety, availability, unit economics, operational burden, and the maturity of the program.
• Lead system- and component-level FMEAs to identify the highest-value reliability risks, influence architecture and design decisions, and prioritize where deeper analysis or testing is needed.
• Develop Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) and environmental test campaigns that efficiently demonstrate long-term performance, including determining how to revalidate systems as designs evolve.
• Lead complex test failures and field issues from initial triage through root cause, risk assessment, and corrective action, including making technically grounded recommendations about hardware readiness and release.
• Sign off on test verification results and assess hardware readiness for flight from a reliability standpoint.
• Define operational life limits and service intervals using a combination of test data, field returns, and statistical models.
• Provide clear technical direction in ambiguous situations, balancing reliability risk against schedule, resources, cost, and operational impact.