Reliability Engineer – Performance & Life-Cycle Assurance
About the role
Mach Industries is a rapidly growing defense technology company founded in 2022. Our mission is to develop next-generation autonomous defense platforms that enhance the strategic capabilities of the United States and its allies. We operate with startup agility and focus on national security through cutting-edge manufacturing and innovation.
Key Responsibilities
Develop, deploy, and maintain a reliability program plan for our UAS platforms and key subsystems (hardware, firmware, software) following best practices (e.g., Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)).
Define reliability and maintainability requirements and metrics (e.g., Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), availability, mission readiness, failure rate targets) early in the design lifecycle, and track performance through production and field operation.
Use data (lab testing, manufacturing, field returns, in-service logs) to perform analytics to identify trends, root causes of failures (RCFA), latent defects, and reliability risks—then drive corrective and preventive actions.
Define and oversee reliability test plans, accelerated life testing, environmental stress screening, field-data analysis, degradation modeling, and life-cycle modeling in collaboration with test & validation teams.
Monitor key reliability indicators (e.g., failure-rate trending, early-life failures, wear-out characteristics, maintenance cost per unit time/mission, parts-life forecasting) and provide actionable insights to leadership.
Communicate reliability status, risk posture, and improvement plans to senior leadership and stakeholders, including interfacing with defense-customer reliability/quality requirements and audits if applicable.
Required Qualifications
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering or related discipline.
5+ years of reliability engineering (or similar) experience in complex hardware-centric systems; preferably in aerospace/defense/unmanned systems or high-reliability industrial/automotive environments.
Demonstrated experience applying reliability methods such as FMEA, FMECA, and RCFA.
Strong data-analysis skills: ability to ingest large data sets (field returns, operational logs), perform statistical/trend analysis, build dashboards, derive actionable insights.
Experience with reliability testing: accelerated life tests, environmental stress screening, vibration/thermal/thermal-cycle/shock/humidity, life-cycle modeling.
Knowledge of safety-critical system standards and regulatory requirements (e.g., MIL-STD, DO-178, DO-254).
Preferred Qualifications
Prior experience in UAS/unmanned aerial systems, defense/mission-critical systems, or high-availability aerospace systems.
Hands-on experience in collaborating with design/production/field teams and influencing change in systems/products based on reliability findings.
Familiarity with manufacturing and supplier reliability practices, and reliability in high-volume production environments - including supplier reliability and high-volume manufacturing.
Experience working with growth-stage companies, building reliability infrastructure from the ground up.