Senior Engineer, Reliability

📋 Job Overview

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. We are seeking a Senior Reliability Engineer to lead reliability engineering activities for the development, integration, testing, and operation of aircraft systems.

🏢 About Shield AI

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide.

🎯 The Role

We are seeking a Senior Reliability Engineer to lead reliability engineering activities for the development, integration, testing, and operation of aircraft systems. This position will work across engineering disciplines to establish reliability requirements, manage system reliability budgets, perform reliability analyses, and identify design improvements that increase aircraft availability and mission success.

✅ Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain aircraft-level reliability requirements, objectives, and program reliability plans.
• Establish, allocate, and manage reliability budgets across systems, subsystems, and line-replaceable units.
• Track predicted reliability against program targets and identify components or subsystems driving reliability risk.
• Perform reliability predictions using component failure-rate data, operating environments, and mission profiles.
• Conduct Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) analysis.
• Support aircraft system safety assessments by providing failure rates, failure modes, and reliability data.
• Develop and maintain Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), Mean Time Between Critical Failure (MTBCF), mission reliability, availability, and related reliability metrics.
• Perform reliability allocation, trade studies, sensitivity analyses, and design assessments.
• Lead or support Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) activities.
• Analyze ground-test, flight-test, supplier, maintenance, and field-performance data to identify reliability trends.
• Apply Weibull analysis and other statistical methods to evaluate failure behavior and predict component life.
• Work with design teams to eliminate single-point failures, reduce high-risk failure modes, and improve fault tolerance.
• Review supplier reliability analyses, test results, and supporting technical data.
• Define reliability demonstration and growth-test requirements, success criteria, and data-collection needs.
• Support technical reviews, including SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, and reliability review boards.
• Communicate reliability performance, budget status, assumptions, risks, and recommended corrective actions to customers and program leadership.
• Mentor junior engineers and improve organizational reliability processes, tools, and standards.

📌 Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in reliability engineering, systems engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or a related technical field.
• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree.
• Direct experience supporting aircraft development, integration, testing, sustainment, or operations.
• Experience developing and managing reliability budgets at the system, subsystem, or equipment level.
• Proficiency with reliability methods such as FMEA/FMECA, FTA, RBD, Weibull analysis, reliability predictions, and FRACAS.
• Familiarity with reliability metrics such as MTBF, MTBCF, failure rate, mission reliability, operational availability, and inherent availability.
• Experience using reliability analysis tools such as ReliaSoft, Windchill Quality Solutions, Isograph, RAM Commander, or equivalent.
• Ability to interpret aircraft mission profiles, operating environments, duty cycles, and test data.
• Experience working with multidisciplinary engineering teams and suppliers.
• Strong analytical, technical writing, presentation, and customer communication skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain any security clearance required for the program.

⭐ Desirable Experience

• Experience working on military aircraft, unmanned aircraft, or other defense-related systems.

🎁 Benefits

Competitive

🛂 Visa & Eligibility

Ability to obtain and maintain any security clearance required for the program.