Design Reliability Engineer, Electrical Systems

About Rivian

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. We build emissions‑free Electric Adventure Vehicles and attract curious, courageous souls who share a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Reliability is at the core of our vehicles. We seek engineers who have experience taking products from early concept through to production, working closely with design, validation and manufacturing teams to solve technical problems. If you are driven by questions like “what can fail and how can I make it better?” then we want you.

• Drive the Design‑for‑Reliability (DfR) strategy for the vehicle’s electrical systems and supporting components, ensuring reliability is integrated from concept through mass production.
• Collaborate with design and validation teams to develop creative, non‑traditional solutions for the most challenging reliability and performance problems.
• Act as the primary reliability development expert for critical electrical systems of the vehicle.

• Set and communicate reliability requirements and targets for components, subsystems, and assemblies.
• Analyze usage and environmental conditions to improve requirement setting and testing methods.
• Facilitate Design FMEA sessions to drive reliable design choices and improve validation test planning.
• Participate in design reviews and facilitate the reliability section of the review.
• Develop reliability design guidelines and apply lessons learned to enable continuous improvement.
• Devise accelerated test methods to explore design margins and grow reliability efficiently.
• Partner with the simulation teams to assess problem areas before physical parts are available.
• Specify reliability validation plans using a physics‑of‑failure approach.
• Guide sample size requirements and duration for reliability testing using reliability statistics.
• Facilitate failure analysis to understand root causes and drive resolution for failures originating in testing.
• Assess and communicate risk at each phase of the reliability program.
• Research failure mechanisms of new technologies and applications, and design experiments (DOE) to explore alternative material and process choices.
• Influence supplier selection for higher reliability and provide clear guidance on requirements and demonstrations to suppliers.
• Develop ongoing reliability testing strategies and act as the gatekeeper of reliability risk throughout product development.
• Partner with Field Reliability and Failure Analysis to incorporate lessons learned into future products.

• Education:
  
  Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.).
• Experience:
  
  One or more years in a dedicated reliability engineering role (role level determined by experience).
• Core
  
  Skills:
  
  Strong technical aptitude and proven interest in reliability engineering.
• Team Leadership:
  Experience facilitating FMEA sessions and leading cross‑functional teams.
• Programming & Statistics:
  Working knowledge of a coding language (preferably Python) and statistical software for reliability analysis, such as JMP or Relia Soft.
• Culture:
  Commitment to a respectful, inclusive, and inspiring team environment.

• Electrical Fundamentals:
  Good understanding of electrical engineering fundamentals, ability to read schematics, and awareness of component functionality for both low‑voltage and high‑voltage systems.
• Physics of Failure (PoF):
  Expertise in PoF for electrical system failure modes, particularly at the component level.
• Degradation Modeling:
  Understanding of degradation models, material behavior, and ability to leverage data science for modeling.

• Understanding of highly accelerated testing methods and governing equations for different failure mechanisms.
• Experience deploying reliability testing guidelines and inventing new testing methods.
• Good understanding of reliability statistics, including Weibull analysis.
• Expertise in accelerated‑life‑test development methods.
• Working knowledge of failure analysis techniques such as optical microscopy, SEM, CT, X‑ray, and EDS.

The salary range for this role is $116,300 – $145,400 for Palo Alto, California…