Staff Engineer, Reliability Test (R5532)

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. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

As a Reliability Test Engineer at Shield AI, you'll own the engineering behind environmental testing of electronic flight hardware for the XBAT aircraft, including thermal, vibration, shock, humidity, altitude, HALT, and HASS testing. Working with design, reliability, and program stakeholders, you'll turn requirements into executable test plans: stress profiles, verification matrices, fixture designs, instrumentation and data acquisition requirements, and pass/fail criteria. You'll write the procedures our environmental test technicians execute, and you'll keep several campaigns planned, sequenced, and on schedule at once.

Once tests are running, you're the engineering authority on the floor. You'll review test data in real time, make the call when something looks wrong (pause, adjust, or continue), and lead the investigation when hardware fails. You'll analyze results and write the reports and visualizations stakeholders rely on to make disposition and qualification decisions, then feed what you learn back into design and future test plans. You'll work with cutting-edge deep-tech hardware, collaborate across disciplines, and directly influence product quality and long-term reliability over the vehicles' lifecycles.

What You'll Do

• Translate design requirements, mission profiles, and industry standards into environmental test plans, including stress profiles, sample sizes, verification matrices, instrumentation maps, and pass/fail criteria.
• Write and maintain the test procedures and work instructions technicians use to set up, execute, and tear down tests.
• Design test fixtures in CAD and verify they are dynamically suitable for vibration and shock testing.
• Define instrumentation and data acquisition requirements, and develop automated tools for data acquisition, reduction, and plotting.
• Provide real-time engineering support during test execution: review live data, disposition anomalies and test interruptions, and authorize profile changes or test stops.
• Lead investigations of test failures and anomalies, partnering with failure analysis and design engineers to drive root cause and corrective action.
• Analyze test data and author test reports that support disposition, qualification, and acceptance decisions.
• Plan and prioritize the test schedule across concurrent campaigns, balancing program needs against lab capacity.
• Define lab capability needs, including equipment, test methods, and capacity, and manage external laboratories when testing exceeds in-house capability.
• Educate stakeholders on environmental test best practices to improve test plans and design-for-test practices.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or related field.
• 2+ years of experience planning and conducting environmental tests, including temperature cycling, vibration, shock, highly accelerated limit testing (HALT), and highly accelerated stress screening (HASS).
• Experience writing test plans, procedures, and reports for hardware qualification or acceptance.
• Working knowledge of relevant industry test standards, including MIL-STD-810, RTCA DO-160, IPC, JEDEC, and ASTM.
• Knowledge of electronics failure mechanisms, including solder fatigue, intermetallic growth, conductive anodic filaments, tin whiskers, electromigration, and corrosion, and how environmental stresses accelerate them.
• Proficiency in CAD modelling software, including ANSYS SpaceClaim, NX, or Solidworks.
• Experience specifying instrumentation and data acquisition (thermocouples, accelerometers, humidity sensors, strain gauges) and analyzing the resulting data.
• Self-starter with a growth mindset and sound judgment when making real-time decisions with incomplete information.
• Clear, concise written and oral communication, including the ability to present results and recommendations to design and hardware test teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a reliability or environmental test engineering role.
• Familiarity with reliability concepts, including Weibull statistics, accelerated life test design, and acceleration models (e.g., Coffin-Manson, Arrhenius, Peck).
• Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Reliability Engineering.
• Proficiency in FEA modelling software, including ANSYS Mechanical, Siemens Simcenter, or Abaqus, including modal analysis of test fixtures.
• Proficiency in Python, including NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, Plotly, and Matplotlib, for data reduction and test automation.
• Experience leading interdisciplinary technical projects from concept to production.
• Experience standing up a new environmental test capability.
• Familiarity with PCB fabrication, SMT, and polymerics application manufacturing processes.

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Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.