SpaceX Lead Hardware Reliability Engineer at SpaceX to build and lead a hardware reliability team for Starshield production. Responsible for identifying, analyzing, and resolving hardware and process failures to improve robustness and yield.
Responsibilities
Lead and hire a team of hardware reliability engineers supporting Starshield production
Provide technical mentorship and guidance to team members leading root cause investigations of subassembly and process failures
Align goals and priorities with production and partner engineering teams to achieve program reliability, yield, and rate objectives
Collaborate with team members to create personalized career growth plans that build their technical capabilities and accelerate progress toward their professional goals
Drive improvements to products and processes that are not meeting design or production requirements through data-driven decisions, using yield and defect monitoring to identify common failure modes
Lead containment activities for nonconforming hardware, including isolation of suspect product, impact assessment, and coordination of disposition and recovery
Improve build processes, work instructions, and production documentation to reduce defects and increase first-pass yield across assigned subassemblies
Lead qualification of production processes for assigned subassemblies, establishing process readiness before rate production
Lead PFMEA reviews with manufacturing and design partners to identify process risks, prioritize controls, and drive risk reduction
Proactively escalate major hardware and process concerns, secure appropriate resources, and maintain clear communication to drive timely resolution and team alignment
Maintain thorough documentation of failure analysis findings, process investigations, test results, and corrective actions
Collaborate with the on-orbit reliability team, driving timely improvements to production through on-orbit investigation findings
Qualification
Experience leading containment
Required
Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, process engineering, materials science, or other engineering discipline
3+ years of experience in hardware development, manufacturing process engineering, failure analysis, or reliability engineering
1+ years of experience leading a project, team, or people
Preferred
Strong analytical skills with an excellent ability to communicate and collaborate with partners in all disciplines at multiple levels in the organization
Demonstrated ability to advocate for and implement robust solutions that stand the test of time
Experience deploying large-scale and/or high-impact solutions in a manufacturing environment
Experience improving manufacturing processes, work instructions, and production documentation to increase yield and reduce defects
Experience leading containment, material review, or nonconformance response for production hardware
Hands-on experience with one or more of the following: PCBA production, battery assembly, solar array manufacturing, pressure vessels or tanks, or electromechanical assemblies (actuators, reaction wheels, torque rods, star trackers, or similar)
Demonstrated experience troubleshooting and root causing hardware or process failures
Experience with statistical process control, process capability analysis, yield analysis, and defect Pareto methods
