Senior Advisor Reliability Electrical

VIA Rail Canada; Montreal (administrative region); On-site; CAD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

VIA Rail Canada is seeking a Senior Reliability Advisor (Electrical Engineering) to oversee maintainability and reliability across rolling stock. You will coordinate with contractor teams, review maintenance manuals, and participate in governance forums to ensure long-term performance and safety.

You will support corridor and long-distance fleet reliability, apply RAM and RCA methods, and work with VIA’s maintenance and design teams to optimize life-cycle performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering.
• 10+ years in reliability engineering or related field.
• Experience with maintenance and design reviews.
• Proven ability to lead RAM, FMEA, FRACAS activities.
• Strong communication with internal/external stakeholders.
• Proficiency in PowerBI, SQL, Python.

Responsibilities

• Oversee maintainability of rolling stock design and maintenance plans.
• Lead FRACAS governance and reliability reviews.
• Participate in Failure Review Board meetings and technical reviews.
• Collaborate with design, operations, maintenance, and QA teams.
• Develop and maintain contractor relationships to sustain reliability.

Skills

Reliability engineering

Railway/Transit experience

RAM & FMEA

FRACAS & RCA

Technical reporting

PowerBI/SQL/Python

Project management

Bilingual English/French

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Tools

PowerBI

SQL

Python

FMEA tools

Job description

Did you know that VIA Rail is carrying out ambitious projects to modernize its services and infrastructure? From our new ultramodern train fleet to ongoing improvement of our infrastructure, we’re building the future of transportation in Canada. Working for VIA Rail is being a part of a collective effort in sustainable mobility.

Position

Reporting to the Senior Manager, Engineering, the Senior Reliability Advisor, Electrical Engineering will oversee and collaborate with the contractor’s technical team to ensure that the Rolling Stock are designed to be maintainable throughout their projected lifespan and specifically within VIA’s Maintenance facilities and with VIA’s Maintenance employees. This role involves overseeing the contractor’s TSSSA Technical Advisor (SME)’s review and sign-off that the rolling stock design is maintainable and ensuring the completeness of the Maintenance Plan and associated Maintenance Manuals. In addition, during Revenue service, the person in the position is a key participant in the Performance Monitoring governance process including active participation in the Failure Review Board sessions. The Senior Advisor is also responsible to support the Equipment Maintenance team on troubleshooting and investigations of current defects and to provide technical expertise guidance. This role will also support Corridor new fleet reliability and develop system specific expertise applicable to all New fleet (Corridor and LDRR – Long Distance, Remote and Regional).

Responsibilities

Technical Support: Maintainability of design

• Overseeing and collaborating with contractor’s technical team to ensure that the Rolling Stock are designed to be maintainable consistent with the requirements of the Maintenance Requirements Specifications for the Maintenance Contract;
• Overseeing contractor’s SME’s review and sign off on the maintainability of the design; Including Maintainability Demonstrations;
• Review/comment completeness of the Maintenance Manuals including work instructions;
• Review/comment compliance of the executable Maintenance Plan, including associated contract deliverables;
• Review/Comment completeness of the Master Spares List;
• Review/Comment completeness and compliance of role specific Life Cycle Maintenance Schedule;

Gouvernance & cross teams

• Act as VIA’s Maintenance focused technical representative in Project Specific Failure Attribution meetings (Corridor and LDRR);
• Lead FRACAS (Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System) governance and reliability reviews;
• Act as VIA’s Maintenance focused technical representative in Failure Review Board meetings;
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including design, operations, maintenance, and quality assurance to align maintenance requirements into executable tasks;
• Develop and maintain relationships with contractor and other external / internal parties to ensure knowledge acquisition and transfer to sustain the reliability of the rolling stock and its subsystems;
• Work together with VIA’s system’s engineers (design) to ensure a comprehensive technical dossier is created for each defect;
• Ensure support to current corridor fleet governance and apply lessons learned to new fleet LDRR;

Performance monitoring

• Monitor the performance of the systems to ensure Contractor meets the Performance Regime targets of the contract (Corridor and LDRR);
• Support the investigation of locomotive and sub-system failures, review contractor’s reports and review/comment suggested technical modifications to the maintenance plan (or manuals);
• Responsible for reliability performance of systems assigned to you, with support from senior engineers (Corridor and LDRR);
• Perform Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) assessments (Corridor and LDRR);

Technical support: Operations (Corridor and LDRR)

• Act as the system SME and provide on-site support for technicians, technical advisors and suggest training improvements;
• Act as the system SME for adapting the Contractor’s Maintenance Program to VIA Rail’s new Maintenance Process;
• Address technical questions and evaluate contractor’s recommendations, as well as provide technical expertise for troubleshooting;

What We Are Looking For

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, or a related technical field

• Proven experience (10 years) in a reliability engineering, railway or transportation industry (a combination of experience and education may be considered)
• Practical background: experience and motivation to work in shop and maintenance environment to:
• Understand and evaluate inspection and repair procedure effectiveness and compliance
• Gather pertinent feedback from maintenance and operations staff
• Perform fleetwide verifications and measurements on VIA’s rolling stock
• Experienced participant in the Rolling Stock design reviews and production implementation phases of similar projects;
• Excellent understanding of the design process and design documentation and how they relate to maintenance aspects;
• Proficiency in reliability analysis tools and methodologies such as FMEA, RAM analysis, fault tree analysis (FTA), FRACAS, and root cause analysis (RCA);
• Experience in providing technical support to technicians;
• Strong problem-solving abilities with the capacity to analyze complex technical data and implement effective solutions;
• Excellent communication skills for presenting technical reports and interacting with both internal teams and external stakeholders;
• Proficiency in using reporting tools and coding (e.g. PowerBI, SQL, Python);
• Strong project management skills and the ability to manage resources, timelines, and priorities;
• Results-driven with a focus on quality and operational excellence;
• Experience in instrumentation and troubleshootingPLC (Programmable Logic Controller) software development and documentation (asset);
• Detail-oriented and committed to safety, reliability, and long‑term performance;
• Familiarity with environmental, health and safety policies as they apply to a maintenance work environment;
• Collaborative team player with excellent interpersonal skills;
• Ability to thrive in a fast‑paced and dynamic environment;
• Operational expertise in Locomotive Rolling Stock equipment (asset);
• Excellent written and verbal proficiency in both official languages (English/French);
• Operational expertise in Car Rolling Stock equipment (asset);
• During the project phase, the incumbent will be required to attend sessions at the contractor’s (or subcontractor’s) design, testing and manufacturing facilities. In addition, the incumbent will be required to attend sessions at VIA’s Maintenance facilities; principally, MMC, TMC, WMC and VMC. As such, travel to and from these locations should be expected.

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At VIA Rail, we are proud to be an employment‑equity employer and we strive to form teams that reflect the diversity of Canadian society. We aim to remove barriers to employment accessibility and aspire to provide an inclusive and equitable work environment where everyone is valued, regardless of their identity or differences, to enable them to reach their full potential.

If you need assistance in making the recruitment process or the position you are applying for more accessible, please let us know. Alternate arrangements may be offered to individuals who request them at any stage of the recruitment process. All information received in relation to arrangements will be kept confidential.

Note that we will only contact those who are selected for an interview.

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