Reliability Engineer-IIoT & Connected Assets
Position Summary
We are scaling our IIoT and connected-maintenance product into new product lines and expansion projects, and we need a reliability engineer who can lead that technical growth. The role is built around understanding why equipment fails — mechanically and electronically — and translating that understanding into the right technology to measure, detect, and prevent those failures.
Job Duties
Understand the equipment, systems, and process
Lead and review failure-mode analysis (FMEA / FMECA) — including analyses produced by the reliability team — and root-cause analysis across mechanical and electronic failure mechanisms.
Engage internal and external technology teams, vendors, and subject-matter experts to determine failure mechanisms.
Characterize each failure mechanism — how it develops, its measurable symptoms, and the lead time to act — and define how data can be used to identify and prevent it.
Research detection technology and select sensors
Propose hypotheses and validate them with data; specify, source, wire, and assemble sensor kits, edge hardware, and electronic prototypes.
Test sensors on prototypes and validate the quality of their readings.
Get hands-on and "feet in the mud" — install, instrument, and test on real equipment in the lab, shop, and field; capture and validate data quality.
Design and run pilots and PoCs end-to-end with clear success criteria; measure results and iterate.
Account for field reality throughout: hazardous-area constraints, ruggedization, packaging/enclosures, connectivity, and serviceability.
Integrate with the IIoT product and shape the roadmap
Organize and standardize failure data
Drive KPIs, deployment, and stakeholder engagement
Build business cases and lifecycle / cost reporting
Qualifications
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Electronics, Electrical, or Mechanical Engineering (or closely related field). Equivalent practical experience will be considered.
Experience: 5+ years in reliability, maintenance, failure analysis, test, or equipment/instrumentation engineering.
Failure mechanisms: Working understanding of both mechanical and electronic failure mechanisms and how they progress.
Failure analysis: Hands-on experience running FMEA / FMECA and root-cause analysis on physical equipment.
Sensors & instrumentation: Practical knowledge of sensors for process and equipment measurement in industrial environments — selecting the correct sensors, writing technical specifications, testing on prototypes, and relating readings to failure-detection logic.
Hands-on prototyping: Able to build, wire, and test electronic and sensor prototypes — not only specify them on paper.
Problem-solving & autonomy: Self-directed — able to scope, research, propose, run, and report on work with limited supervision, while contributing as part of a team.
Location & travel: Based in Houston, on-site, and willing/able to travel to equipment and shop locations.
Technical Skills & Knowledge
Reliability & failure analysis: Reliability, maintainability, availability & risk management (RAM); failure analysis / root cause; FMEA / FMECA; reliability block diagrams; Weibull analysis; tribology.
Instrumentation & sensing: Sensors for process and equipment measurement in industrial environments; sensor selection; technical specification writing; bench and prototype testing; relating readings to failure-detection algorithms.
Condition Monitoring & Equipment Diagnostics: Hydraulic systems, lubrication systems, oil condition monitoring, fluid analysis, vibration analysis, thermal monitoring, and failure detection techniques.
Controls & industrial connectivity: Control systems, SCADA, PLCs, and closed control loops; industrial communication protocols (CAN bus / J1939, MQTT, OPC, Modbus).
Maintenance strategies & asset management: Condition-based, preventive, run-to-failure, and failure-finding strategies; condition-monitoring techniques; asset management.
Digital & data: Digital transformation / machine learning / Industry 4.0; business intelligence (e.g., Power BI); data extraction and analysis.
Cost & business: Life-cycle cost; financial analysis for business cases (TCO, NPV, ROI, IRR, cost Pareto and trending).
Systems & process: SAP (PM module); project management; agile ways of working; management of change; operations and equipment knowledge across PSLs.
HSE & continuous improvement: HSE basics and safe driving; continuous-improvement certification (e.g., CI Bronze / Red level).
Core Competencies
Continuous improvement; innovation and creative thinking.
Agile ways of working — planning and delivering in short, iterative cycles.
Systematic Problem Search & Understanding
Results Analysis & Data-Driven Evaluation
Business acumen — understanding the business and customer needs and developing new opportunities.
Ability to extract and leverage the right data for the right reasons.
Influencing people, creating relationships, and digital communication across functions.
Decision-making, including operational decisions; managing change; planning and organizing.
Working Conditions
On-site role in Houston with regular access to desk, lab/prototyping bench, field and shop areas. Field and shop visits involve standard industrial environments and PPE; travel is expected (estimated 20–40%) to field and shop locations, domestic and international.