Senior / Staff Build Reliability Engineer (Integration)

Responsibilities

• Own Build Reliability for vehicle integration and test work centers, setting expectations for reliability, manufacturability, and build and flight readiness.
• Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, and Mission Assurance leadership to ensure robust, scalable quality and verification plans across the product lifecycle, with lessons consistently carried across programs.
• Ensure successful introduction of flight hardware by defining integration readiness criteria–including process qualification, design for manufacturability and assembly, and inspectability–and driving the retirement of risks through production ramp-up.
• Drive maturation of integration and test processes, ensuring documentation, equipment, tooling, process controls, data collection, and training support consistent and streamlined execution.
• Ensure off-nominal work is performed and documented reliably. Partner with Mission Assurance to drive risk mitigations and steer response plans to severe issues. Provide leadership and technical direction for high-visibility issues, establishing recovery plans and aligning operations, quality, and engineering on execution.
• Collect and analyze build data to identify risk and recurring issues. Lead build quality reviews, generate data-driven recommendations, and effectively influence upstream and partner teams to prioritize efforts that prevent escapes and improve vehicle reliability.
• Lead containment and root-cause investigation of high-impact vehicle issues. Ensure implementation and verification of robust corrective actions that address root cause and systemic contributors across Vast.
• Lead major cost reduction initiatives through simplification of requirements, clearer design and integration standards, streamlined inspection and process validation steps, and strengthened process controls.
• Mentor individuals and teams to elevate reliability capabilities across the company.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years of experience in quality, manufacturing, reliability, or design in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability hardware environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives with executive visibility and influence technical direction across organizations.
• Excellent communication and technical leadership skills.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Proven track record of driving systemic improvements and shaping engineering strategy.
• Deep expertise in reliability engineering, quality systems, and standards (ISO 9001, AS9100, etc.)
• Mastery of advanced reliability and quality tools (RCA, FMEA, SPC, control plans); Six Sigma Black Belt or equivalent experience preferred.
• Strong technical depth in hardware integration, assembly operations, and/or test operations.