Reliability and Maintainability Engineer (R5301)
Leads technical investigations for V-BAT unmanned aircraft field failures, driving root cause analysis and corrective actions from containment through verification and closure. Partners cross-functionally with Fleet Support, Product Engineering, Quality, and Manufacturing to improve fleet readiness, prevent recurrence, and translate findings into design and process improvements.
- Compensation
- $117K–$176K / yr
- Location
- Dallas, Texas
- Work setup
- Onsite
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Part time
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Category
- Not specified
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical exp
- 4+ years of experience in reliability engineering, maintainability engineering, failure analysis, systems engineering, quality engineering, aviation sustainment, product support, manufacturing enginee
- Demonstrated experience conducting 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 while partnering with senior technical leaders to drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.
- Ability to balance engineering rigor, investigation depth, field urgency, customer impact, and fleet-readiness needs.
- Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance as required by customers.
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 dashboar
- 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.
Full description
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. For more information, visit . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Job Description:
The Reliability and Maintainability Engineer is a senior-level individual contributor responsible for driving investigation, root cause analysis, corrective action, and reliability improvement for V-BAT field failures, repeat defects, and complex technical issues requiring deeper engineering analysis.This role owns the technical investigation path for fielded V-BAT issues by using logs, returned hardware, test data, maintenance records, operational context, configuration data, and fleet trends to determine failure modes, root causes, contributing factors, and corrective actions. The Reliability and Maintainability Engineer partners closely with Fleet Support Engineering, Product Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Reliability Data Engineering, Supply Chain, and Operations to ensure field failures are understood, contained, corrected, and prevented from recurring.This role is accountable for translating field issues into structured technical investigations, verified corrective actions, reliability improvements, maintainability improvements, and clear product health insights that improve fleet readiness, customer support, and long-term system performance.
What you'll do:
- 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 and support returned material analysis, teardown reviews, bench testing, inspection planning, fault isolation, and failure replication activities.