Quality & Reliability Engineer

Frontline Wildfire Defense•Los Angeles, CA

1d•$145,000 - $170,000•Remote

About The Position

Frontline Wildfire Defense is hiring a Quality & Reliability Engineer to establish and hands-on operate its hardware quality and reliability function. The position owns the process of turning field failures into root causes and permanent fixes across product designs, suppliers, and contract manufacturing, working with hardware engineering, operations, and field support. The company’s connected, field-deployed wildfire defense systems must work when needed, making quality mission-critical. The role is remote, and candidates should be located in Southern California. Travel to field sites and suppliers is expected. Frontline Wildfire Defense, founded in 2017, developed an integrated wildfire defense system combining exterior sprinklers, full-coverage design, and connected software for remote monitoring and response. The company describes its mission as helping people live safely with fire through real-world wildfire safety and climate technology solutions. The position establishes failure analysis, root cause, and corrective action processes and their tracking and review cadence; defines and monitors quality and reliability metrics; helps build and run reliability testing; leads field-failure investigations and corrective actions; addresses supplier and manufacturing quality; and integrates quality gates into new product introduction and design and bill-of-materials changes. The listed salary range is $145,000–$170,000, depending on experience. Benefits include company-provided phone, laptop, and other equipment; medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) plan; flexible time off; 14 paid holidays; a work-from-home stipend; and a remote-first work environment. Employment offers are contingent on successful completion of background checks, which typically cover the past 7–10 years and may include employment and education verification. Driving record verification is also required for roles involving field work.

Requirements

At least 5 years of quality and/or reliability engineering experience for physical, deployed hardware.
Demonstrated ownership of failure analysis and corrective action through verified closure.
Direct supplier and contract-manufacturer quality experience, including corrective action, incoming inspection, and qualification.
Experience with reliability testing such as HALT/HASS, life, and environmental testing, and ability to act on test results.
Comfort building processes while also performing hands-on work in a scaling company.
Willingness to travel to field locations and suppliers.
Candidates should be located in Southern California.

Nice To Haves

Experience with electromechanical, fluidic, or connected-device hardware.
Field or operations experience, including debugging deployed systems and working with installers.
Experience with connected or IoT products, telemetry-driven diagnostics, and firmware or OTA failure modes.
Familiarity with reliability statistics and PLM/ECO and BOM rigor.

Responsibilities

Establish and operate the failure analysis, root cause, and corrective action process, including tracking and review cadence.
Define and track quality and reliability metrics to identify and prioritize major issues.
Help define, build, and run reliability tests, including HALT/HASS, life, and environmental testing.
Own field-failure investigations from field and telemetry signals through verified root cause.
Drive and verify fixes across mechanical, electromechanical, fluidic, and electronic systems, and feed findings back into product design.
Partner with field support and operations to quantify failure modes and prioritize reliability improvements.
Manage supplier issues through containment, corrective action, incoming inspection, and verification.
Qualify new and second-source suppliers and work with contract manufacturers to improve build quality.
Build quality gates into new product introduction and review design and BOM changes for risk.
Travel to field locations and suppliers as needed.