Principal Flight Reliability Engineer

Amca•El Segundo, CA

About The Position

Amca is building America’s new industrial base. Since the 1990s, our ability to build new aviation and military systems and maintain the ones we already have has eroded. Today, the gap between what the nation needs to produce and what it is capable of producing is the largest it has been in generations. To help close that gap, Amca rapidly develops and manufactures new critical components and subsystems required to build and sustain the planes, military vehicles, and core infrastructure America needs. Today, we operate seven factories nationwide, including our advanced prototyping and testing headquarters in El Segundo, and deliver avionics, hydraulic, and electrical components for platforms such as the F-35, F-16, F/A-18, 737MAX, 787, A320neo, A321, Mk-48, and M1 Abrams. Overview: You will be a senior technical contributor on Amca's design team, owning the overall design process and standards set by Amca. This role is vital to the business as it will help build out the standard design process that Amca applies to every new product it brings to market. You will report directly to the head of engineering, and we are looking for someone with either an electrical background or mechanical background to help develop the design processes in either mechanical or electrical systems. The role will include developing the process and systems for how we review requirements, holding design reviews, ensuring we are meeting requirements, creating design standards, minimizing design risk, and providing design feedback to a large percentage of hardware designs at the company. The senior/principal design reliability role requires experience developing hardware in a fast-paced environment, and the expectation is that this individual is able to work cross-functionally within Amca and its factories to push all of Amca to the forefront of hardware development.

Requirements

Substantial experience in mechanical or electrical engineering for aerospace or defense hardware, with a strong track record taking products from concept through flight qualification and into production
Deep technical expertise in at least one mechanical or electrical discipline — [mechanical] such as fluid systems (pneumatic or hydraulic), mechanisms, structural design, cockpit avionics packaging, or power electronics enclosures — [electrical] such as flight controls, power electronics, sensors, PCB/PCBA design, or RF – with working fluency across adjacent areas
Hands-on and lab-comfortable
Strong command of engineering first principles across mechanics or electronics; proven ability to simplify requirements and cut complexity
Familiarity and experience with common analysis tools such as hand calcs, FEA, and other simulations.
Familiarity with MIL-STD-810, DO-160, and other aerospace qualification frameworks
Independent, direct, and action-oriented; takes full ownership and thrives with minimal oversight
Nascent leadership instincts — comfortable informally guiding peers and ready to grow into broader responsibility over time
Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, Green Card holder, or protected person).

Responsibilities

Create a standard process for digesting and tracking all customer requirements.
Lead conversations with customers in relation to requirements and challenge requirements where appropriate.
Work closely and help lead design engineers with their product development by providing feedback that both mitigates risk and allows them to move as quickly as possible.
Attend and review all design reviews.
Provide feedback throughout the design review process.
Track design review actions and ensure they are closed out.
Own CAD release process.
Set approval structure, enforce approvers, and maintain system. This may require some level of high level software ownership of applications like Teamcenter/NX/Altium. You will have access to a software team if specific tasks pop up.
Create Amca design guide
Set standards for what types of components Amca should use in its design
Set analysis standards
Create specific hardware design guides from lessons learned from design engineers. Electromechanical Hydraulics Avionics
Set standards for hardware qualification.
Leverage military standards and previous experiences to challenge requirements and ensure we are getting the most value out of our testing.
Ensure we are testing in the most flight like manner possible.
When failures occur in qualification, assist with root cause identification and corrective action (primarily in relation to design misses).
Assist with defining our configuration management process.
This will be a more hands-on role than a standard design reliability role. You will be expected to help out your fellow design engineers and potentially even support some design projects when necessary.
Serve as an overall technical mentor for the entire Amca engineering team.
Assist with identifying design gaps within Amca’s factories to help identify high risk areas.
Collaborate closely with mechanical, electrical, software, and build engineering to ensure all parties are adhering to the same design standards.