Design Reliability Engineering Manager
About The Position
Astrolab is hiring a Design Reliability Engineering Manager to ensure the systems of its CLV-1 lunar rover survive their missions. The role works across disciplines to build reliability into designs and identify and mitigate failures before they occur. The manager will lead reliability engineering across avionics, mechanisms, power, thermal, and structures for current and future rover programs, and build a team of reliability and design assurance engineers as the company scales. The position will architect design standards and test methodologies, champion the design process, and establish design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches for new hardware. It will own change and risk reviews, translate technical risks and their impacts into clear decisions, and develop processes that help ensure designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, changes are implemented, and risks are mitigated. The role will also flow reliability requirements down to hardware, develop analysis tools and guidance materials, mentor engineers, and capture lessons learned to drive continuous improvement.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM)-related field.
- At least 5 years of experience in reliability, design assurance, or systems engineering for spaceflight, aerospace, or other high-consequence hardware, such as defense, nuclear, or medical devices.
- At least 2 years in a people-management or team-lead role.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with FMEA/FMECA, fault tree analysis, reliability prediction using MIL-HDBK-217 or physics-of-failure methods, and worst-case analysis.
- Experience with extreme thermal cycling, vacuum outgassing, radiation (SEU/SEL/TID), regolith or dust contamination, and launch or landing shock and vibration loads.
- Experience designing, integrating, testing, or operating space vehicles or other large, complex systems.
- Experience establishing a reliability function at a growth-stage company.
- Experience creating engineering standards, review templates, or technical guidance frameworks.
- Experience with manufacturing processes, materials selection, and hardware qualification pathways.
- Experience with fracture control, human-rated hardware standards, or similar reliability frameworks.
Responsibilities
- Lead and own the reliability program across avionics, mechanisms, power, thermal, and structures for current and future rover programs.
- Build and manage a team of reliability and design assurance engineers, including setting hiring priorities, technical standards, and growth paths.
- Architect design standards and test methodologies.
- Champion the design process and set design criteria, requirements, and verification approaches for new hardware.
- Own change and risk reviews and translate technical risk and impact into actionable decisions.
- Build processes to ensure designs meet standards, reviews are comprehensive, changes are implemented, and risks are mitigated.
- Flow reliability requirements down to hardware, including margins, screening levels, and derating guidelines.
- Develop specialized analysis tools, review templates, reliability checklists, and design guides.
- Mentor engineers on reliability methods and analysis techniques.
- Capture lessons learned and drive continuous improvements to standards and processes.
Benefits
- Equity ownership in the company.
- Comprehensive health benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and mental health support.
- 401(k) plan with company match.
- Flexible PTO and parental leave.
- Weekly lunch stipend, plus complimentary on-site snacks and beverages.
- Monthly on-site social hour with food and drinks.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
