Reliability Engineer IV - Contract

Autonomous Solutions, Inc; Fort Worth (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI) is expanding its Reliability IV team. The role leads reliability activities across autonomous dozer platforms, evaluating mechanical, electrical, software, and vehicle systems to identify risks and validate corrective actions with data.

As a Level IV engineer, you will independently lead complex reliability workstreams, guide other engineers, and influence design decisions while aligning with senior leadership on reliability strategy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Reliability, Systems or related field.
• Eight+ years of reliability engineering experience or related work.
• Experience leading complex reliability analyses and investigations.

Responsibilities

• Lead reliability planning and analyses for autonomous dozer systems and subsystems.
• Develop reliability requirements, targets, validation criteria, and acceptance thresholds.
• Lead FMEA (DFMEA/PFMEA) and system-level FMEA activities.
• Perform fault tree analysis, reliability block diagrams, and risk assessments.
• Identify reliability risks across mechanical, electrical, software, and vehicle-control systems.
• Develop test strategies for harsh environments and complex duty cycles.
• Coordinate environmental, durability, and accelerated-life testing.

Skills

Reliability engineering

Failure investigation

Data-driven decision making

Technical leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Problem solving

Engineering analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related field

Master's degree in Reliability or Systems Engineering (preferred)

Tools

Python

MATLAB

FMEA tools

JAMA/Jira/FRACAS

Excel

Job description

ASI is expanding its teams to support its current ramp-up across development work, customer projects, and product deployments. This is a full-time W-2 contract position. The selected candidate will interview with ASI and work as an integrated member of the ASI team. W-2 employment, payroll, and benefits will be administered through one of ASI's staffing partners. Development phases of this nature typically span up to project completion (typically 2-4 years), though scope and duration are driven by business needs.

JOB SUMMARY

The Reliability Engineer IV develops and leads reliability activities that improve the durability, availability, maintainability, and operational performance of ASI's autonomous dozer platforms. This role evaluates mechanical, electrical, software, and integrated vehicle systems to identify reliability risks, investigate failures, define validation strategies, and ensure corrective actions are supported by measurable data.

As a Level IV engineer within ASI's five-level engineering structure, this position independently leads complex reliability workstreams and influences design and validation decisions across the Dozer Team. The role serves as a technical resource for reliability engineering methods, supports difficult cross-functional failure investigations, and provides guidance to less-experienced engineers. Broader company-wide reliability strategy and final technical authority remain aligned with engineering leadership and Level V technical experts.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead reliability planning and analysis for autonomous dozer systems, subsystems, and components
• Develop reliability requirements, performance targets, validation criteria, and acceptance thresholds for assigned programs
• Lead Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, including DFMEA, PFMEA, and system-level FMEA activities
• Perform or support Fault Tree Analysis, reliability block diagrams, risk assessments, and other structured reliability analyses
• Identify reliability risks across mechanical, electrical, software, sensor, computing, communication, and vehicle-control systems
• Develop reliability test strategies for autonomous dozers operating in construction, mining, earthmoving, and other demanding environments
• Define and coordinate environmental, durability, accelerated-life, and system-level validation testing
• Support testing involving vibration and shock, temperature cycling, humidity, water ingress, pressure washing, salt exposure, dust, contamination, and mechanical loading
• Lead complex failure investigations using root cause analysis, fault isolation, data review, physical inspection, and structured problem-solving methods
• Coordinate corrective and preventive actions with design, software, electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, supplier, and test teams
• Verify that corrective actions address root causes and reduce the likelihood of recurrence
• Analyze laboratory, vehicle, field, warranty, maintenance, and operational data to identify failure trends and emerging reliability risks
• Develop reliability metrics, dashboards, reports, and technical summaries that communicate product health and program risk
• Evaluate component and subsystem reliability using statistical methods, life-data analysis, degradation analysis, and trend monitoring
• Support development of reliability predictions, failure-rate estimates, and availability or maintainability assessments
• Evaluate autonomous dozer designs for durability, serviceability, maintainability, fault tolerance, and environmental robustness
• Partner with systems engineers to ensure reliability requirements are traceable to system architecture, test plans, and validation evidence
• Collaborate with test engineers and field teams to develop realistic duty cycles and operating profiles for dozer validation
• Participate in design reviews and provide reliability-focused recommendations before design release or field deployment
• Support supplier evaluations, component qualification, and resolution of supplier-related reliability concerns
• Lead investigations involving intermittent, system-level, or difficult-to-reproduce failures
• Support reliability growth planning and track progress against defined reliability objectives
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to engineers involved in reliability analysis, testing, and failure investigations
• Improve reliability engineering processes, templates, tools, data practices, and documentation standards
• Communicate technical risks, findings, corrective actions, and recommendations to engineering teams, program leadership, and stakeholders
• Support customer deployments, field testing, and on-site investigations as required

ESSENTIAL EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE, JOB SKILLS

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Reliability Engineering, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field
• Typically eight or more years of experience in reliability engineering, validation, product assurance, durability testing, failure analysis, or related engineering work
• Demonstrated experience independently leading complex reliability analyses and failure investigations
• Strong experience with FMEA, root cause analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, corrective-action processes, and reliability risk assessment
• Experience developing reliability validation plans for complex electromechanical or hardware-software integrated systems
• Experience with environmental, durability, accelerated-life, or qualification testing
• Ability to evaluate mechanical, electrical, software, and system-level failure interactions
• Experience analyzing test, field, maintenance, warranty, or operational data to identify trends and reliability risks
• Working knowledge of reliability statistics, life-data analysis, Weibull analysis, probability distributions, and confidence limits
• Experience establishing measurable reliability requirements, test criteria, and technical acceptance thresholds
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, electrical schematics, test results, system logs, and technical documentation
• Experience using data-analysis tools such as Python, MATLAB, Minitab, JMP, Excel, or comparable platforms
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical investigations and drive issues to resolution
• Strong technical writing, documentation, presentation, and communication skills
• Ability to provide technical guidance without direct supervisory responsibility
• Ability to work effectively with engineering, test, operations, supplier, and customer-facing teams

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree in Reliability Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline
• Certified Reliability Engineer or similar professional certification
• Experience supporting autonomous vehicles, construction equipment, dozers, heavy machinery, robotics, or off-road platforms
• Knowledge of dozer operations, grading, cut-and-fill, ripping, earthmoving, and construction-site workflows
• Experience with Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety analysis
• Experience with FMECA, reliability block diagrams, maintainability analysis, or availability modeling
• Experience with reliability growth methods, including test-analyze-fix-test processes
• Familiarity with physics-of-failure methods and accelerated-life test development
• Experience with highly accelerated life testing, highly accelerated stress screening, or design-of-experiments methods
• Experience evaluating vibration, shock, temperature, humidity, dust, water, corrosion, contamination, and pressure-wash exposure
• Familiarity with functional safety, safety-critical systems, or risk-based verification and validation practices
• Experience with vehicle communication networks, embedded systems, sensors, autonomous software, or vehicle-control systems
• Experience supporting prototype-to-production transitions and field reliability improvement programs
• Experience performing supplier reliability assessments and component qualification activities
• Familiarity with JAMA, Jira, PLM systems, FRACAS tools, or similar requirements and issue-management platforms

At Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI), we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where all employees and applicants have equal opportunities. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected characteristic. ASI complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws regarding nondiscrimination in employment and is dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process.

Your employment with ASI will be "at will," meaning that either you or ASI may terminate your employment at any time for any lawful reason, with or without cause or advance notice.