Staff Reliability and Maintainability Engineer (R5301)

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.

Responsibilities

Lead engineering investigations for V-BAT field failures, repeat defects, reliability issues, maintainability issues, and complex technical escalations.; Drive Root Cause and Corrective Action investigations for fielded V-BAT issues, including containment, root cause identification, corrective action planning, verification, and closure.; Reproduce and analyze field issues using logs, returned hardware, test data, maintenance records, operational context, configuration data, environmental conditions, and customer-reported symptoms.; Partner with Fleet Support Engineers, Product Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Reliability Data Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations to investigate and resolve fielded system issues.; Determine whether issues are caused by design, manufacturing, supplier quality, configuration, software, operator use, environmental exposure, maintenance practices, documentation gaps, or system integration effects.; Lead or support returned material analysis, teardown reviews, bench testing, inspection planning, fault isolation, and failure replication activities.; Document failure modes, root cause, contributing factors, containment actions, corrective actions, verification plans, and recurrence-prevention measures.; Drive corrective actions through closure by ensuring actions have owners, due dates, verification methods, and measurable field-improvement outcomes.; Identify reliability and maintainability trends from field failures, repeat defects, maintenance data, test results, and product health indicators.; Recommend new tests, inspections, diagnostics, design changes, process changes, maintenance updates, or supplier quality actions to prevent recurrence.; Provide technical input to product health reviews, reliability readouts, sustainment reviews, fleet readiness assessments, and leadership updates.; Support development and improvement of R&M processes, including field failure review, FRACAS, RCCA, reliability growth tracking, maintainability feedback loops, and corrective action management.; Work with Product Engineering to ensure field-failure findings are translated into design improvements, retrofit plans, software updates, service actions, or configuration changes where appropriate.; Work with Quality and Manufacturing to determine whether failures are linked to process escapes, inspection gaps, workmanship issues, supplier defects, or production variation.; Work with Fleet Support and Operations to understand operational impact, maintenance burden, customer effects, and urgency of fielded system issues.; Provide clear technical recommendations on containment, inspection, repair, replacement, retrofit, service guidance, or fleet-level mitigation.; Communicate investigation findings, risks, corrective actions, and verification status clearly to technical teams, sustainment leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders.; Support X-BAT lessons learned where V-BAT reliability, maintainability, and field-failure experience can inform future design, sustainment, diagnostics, repairability, and lifecycle planning.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.; 5+ years of experience in reliability engineering, maintainability engineering, failure analysis, systems engineering, quality engineering, aviation sustainment, product support, manufacturing engineering, or complex hardware sustainment.; Demonstrated experience leading technical investigations for field failures, repeat defects, hardware issues, system-level issues, or complex product performance problems.; Experience driving Root Cause and Corrective Action investigations from initial problem statement through containment, root cause, corrective action, verification, and closure.; Strong ability to analyze hardware, software behavior, logs, test data, returned material, field reports, configuration history, maintenance records, and operational context.; Familiarity with structured problem-solving and failure-analysis methods such as 5 Whys, fault tree analysis, fishbone diagrams, 8D, FMEA/FMECA, FRACAS, fault isolation, or similar methods.; Ability to distinguish between design, manufacturing, supplier quality, configuration, software, operator, environmental, maintenance, and documentation-related contributors.; Experience working across Product Engineering, Fleet Support, Quality, Manufacturing, Reliability Data Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations to resolve technical issues.; Strong technical judgment and problem-solving skills, including the ability to investigate ambiguous field reports, identify likely failure modes, and define practical next steps.; Ability to convert technical findings into clear corrective actions, verification plans, risk assessments, and product or process improvement recommendations.; Experience supporting customer-impacting technical issues in aviation, unmanned systems, robotics, defense, manufacturing, aerospace, or complex electromechanical systems.; Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document technical findings, investigation rationale, corrective actions, and leadership-level summaries.; Ability to operate independently as a senior technical IC and drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.; Ability to balance engineering rigor, investigation depth, field urgency, customer impact, and fleet-readiness needs.

Nice to have

Experience with unmanned aircraft systems, aviation sustainment, aerospace manufacturing, defense products, robotics, or deployed hardware systems.; Experience with FRACAS, reliability growth programs, fleet reliability tracking, MTBF/MTBUR analysis, Weibull analysis, reliability block diagrams, maintainability analysis, or product health dashboards.; Experience analyzing aircraft logs, flight data, maintenance data, telemetry, software logs, test results, inspection findings, or returned hardware.; Familiarity with RCCA, MRB, ECO/ECR processes, configuration management, service bulletins, maintenance releases, retrofit planning, or field service actions.; Experience investigating failures in avionics, propulsion, power systems, flight controls, structures, payload interfaces, ground equipment, support equipment, or complex electromechanical assemblies.; Experience working with Reliability Data Engineering, data analytics, or fleet health monitoring teams to identify failure trends and emerging risks.; Experience supporting fielded products where technical recommendations directly affect readiness, safety, maintainability, or customer operations.; Experience working in a startup, high-growth, defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or advanced manufacturing environment.; Advanced degree in Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline preferred but not required.

Benefits

Bonus; Benefits; Equity