Lead Hardware Reliability Engineer; Starshield

Position: Lead Hardware Reliability Engineer (Starshield)
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.

LEAD HARDWARE RELIABILITY ENGINEER (STARSHIELD)
Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. This is an opportunity to build and lead a hardware reliability team for Starshield production. You will identify, analyze, and resolve hardware and process failures to improve the robustness, yield, and documentation of Starshield subassemblies.

This role spans PCBA production, battery builds, solar arrays, tanks, and mechanical assemblies such as actuators, reaction wheels, torque rods, and star trackers. You will partner with manufacturing, design, quality, and supply chain teams to strengthen build processes, raise first-pass yield, and lead containment when hardware or process issues put production PONSIBILITIES:
Lead and hire a team of hardware reliability engineers supporting Starshield production

Provide technical mentorship and guidance to team members leading root cause investigations of subassembly and process failures

Align goals and priorities with production and partner engineering teams to achieve program reliability, yield, and rate objectives

Collaborate with team members to create personalized career growth plans that build their technical capabilities and accelerate progress toward their professional goals

Drive improvements to products and processes that are not meeting design or production requirements through data-driven decisions, using yield and defect monitoring to identify common failure modes

Lead containment activities for nonconforming hardware, including isolation of suspect product, impact assessment, and coordination of disposition and recovery

Improve build processes, work instructions, and production documentation to reduce defects and increase first-pass yield across assigned subassemblies

Lead qualification of production processes for assigned subassemblies, establishing process readiness before rate production

Lead PFMEA reviews with manufacturing and design partners to identify process risks, prioritize controls, and drive risk reduction

Proactively escalate major hardware and process concerns, secure appropriate resources, and maintain clear communication to drive timely resolution and team alignment

Maintain thorough documentation of failure analysis findings, process investigations, test results, and corrective actions

Collaborate with the on-orbit reliability team, driving timely improvements to production through on-orbit investigation findings

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, process engineering, materials science, or other engineering discipline3+ years of experience in hardware development, manufacturing process engineering, failure analysis, or reliability engineering 1+ years of experience leading a project, team, or people PREFERRED

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

Strong analytical skills with an excellent ability to communicate and collaborate with partners in all disciplines at multiple levels in the organization

Demonstrated ability to advocate for and implement robust solutions that stand the test of time Experience deploying large-scale and/or high-impact solutions in a manufacturing environment

Experience improving manufacturing processes, work instructions, and production documentation to increase yield and reduce defects

Experience leading containment, material review, or nonconformance response for production hardware

Hands-on experience with one or more of the following: PCBA production, battery assembly, solar array manufacturing, pressure vessels or tanks, or electromechanical assemblies (actuators, reaction wheels, torque rods, star trackers, or similar)
Demonstrated experience troubleshooting and root causing hardware or process failures

Experience with statistical process control, process capability analysis, yield analysis, and defect Pareto methods

Familiarity with manufacturing process controls such as soldering, bonding, welding, torque, cleanliness, leak/pressure testing, or similar…