As a Reliability Test Engineer at Shield AI, you'll own the engineering behind environmental testing of electronic flight hardware for the XBAT aircraft, including thermal, vibration, shock, humidity, altitude, HALT, and HASS testing. Working with design, reliability, and program stakeholders, you'll turn requirements into executable test plans: stress profiles, verification matrices, fixture designs, instrumentation and data acquisition requirements, and pass/fail criteria. You'll write the procedures our environmental test technicians execute, and you'll keep several campaigns planned, sequenced, and on schedule at once.
Once tests are running, you're the engineering authority on the floor. You'll review test data in real time, make the call when something looks wrong (pause, adjust, or continue), and lead the investigation when hardware fails. You'll analyze results and write the reports and visualizations stakeholders rely on to make disposition and qualification decisions, then feed what you learn back into design and future test plans. You'll work with cutting-edge deep-tech hardware, collaborate across disciplines, and directly influence product quality and long-term reliability over the vehicles' lifecycles.
What You'll Do
- Translate design requirements, mission profiles, and industry standards into environmental test plans, including stress profiles, sample sizes, verification matrices, instrumentation maps, and pass/fail criteria.
- Write and maintain the test procedures and work instructions technicians use to set up, execute, and tear down tests.
- Design test fixtures in CAD and verify they are dynamically suitable for vibration and shock testing.
- Define instrumentation and data acquisition requirements, and develop automated tools for data acquisition, reduction, and plotting.
- Provide real-time engineering support during test execution: review live data, disposition anomalies and test interruptions, and authorize profile changes or test stops.
- Lead investigations of test failures and anomalies, partnering with failure analysis and design engineers to drive root cause and corrective action.
- Analyze test data and author test reports that support disposition, qualification, and acceptance decisions.
- Plan and prioritize the test schedule across concurrent campaigns, balancing program needs against lab capacity.
- Define lab capability needs, including equipment, test methods, and capacity, and manage external laboratories when testing exceeds in-house capability.
- Educate stakeholders on environmental test best practices to improve test plans and design-for-test practices.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Reliability Engineering, or related field.
- 2+ years of experience planning and conducting environmental tests, including temperature cycling, vibration, shock, highly accelerated limit testing (HALT), and highly accelerated stress screening (HASS).
- Experience writing test plans, procedures, and reports for hardware qualification or acceptance.
- Working knowledge of relevant industry test standards, including MIL-STD-810, RTCA DO-160, IPC, JEDEC, and ASTM.
- Knowledge of electronics failure mechanisms, including solder fatigue, intermetallic growth, conductive anodic filaments, tin whiskers, electromigration, and corrosion, and how environmental stresses accelerate them.
- Proficiency in CAD modelling software, including ANSYS SpaceClaim, NX, or Solidworks.
- Experience specifying instrumentation and data acquisition (thermocouples, accelerometers, humidity sensors, strain gauges) and analyzing the resulting data.
- Self-starter with a growth mindset and sound judgment when making real-time decisions with incomplete information.
- Clear, concise written and oral communication, including the ability to present results and recommendations to design and hardware test teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience in a reliability or environmental test engineering role.
- Familiarity with reliability concepts, including Weibull statistics, accelerated life test design, and acceleration models (e.g., Coffin-Manson, Arrhenius, Peck).
- Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Reliability Engineering.
- Proficiency in FEA modelling software, including ANSYS Mechanical, Siemens Simcenter, or Abaqus, including modal analysis of test fixtures.
- Proficiency in Python, including NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, Plotly, and Matplotlib, for data reduction and test automation.
- Experience leading interdisciplinary technical projects from concept to production.
- Experience standing up a new environmental test capability.
- Familiarity with PCB fabrication, SMT, and polymerics application manufacturing processes.
Skills Required
- 2+ years of experience with environmental testing, including temperature cycling, vibration, HALT, and HASS
- Self-starting, growth mindset, excellent problem-solving skills, and attention to detail
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Reliability Engineering
- Proficiency with CAD modeling software such as ANSYS SpaceClaim, NX, or SolidWorks
- Knowledge of data acquisition equipment and instrumentation, including thermocouples, accelerometers, humidity sensors, and strain gauges
- Familiarity with electronics, moving mechanical assemblies, and reliability failure mechanisms
- Clear written and oral communication skills and ability to work collaboratively
- Experience working with interdisciplinary teams to execute product design from concept to production
- Experience managing technical projects
- Familiarity with IPC, JEDEC, MIL, and ASTM industry test standards
- 5+ years of experience in reliability testing, including temperature cycling, vibration, HALT, and HASS
- Familiarity with Weibull statistics, accelerated life test design, HALT, and HASS reliability concepts
- Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Reliability Engineering
- Prior experience managing an environmental test lab
- Familiarity with PCB fabrication, SMT, and polymerics application manufacturing processes
- Proficiency with FEA software such as ANSYS Mechanical, Siemens Simcenter, or Abaqus
- Proficiency in Python, including NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, Plotly, and Matplotlib
What the Team is Saying
Shield Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision coverage are described as strong and affordable, and offerings include a mental-health assistance program. Overall impressions point to good plan value for many employees.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with employer matching is highlighted positively, with accounts describing a company match and favorable experiences. Current match formulas and vesting are noted as worth confirming.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Full-time hires receive equity (often via RSUs), positioned as a meaningful component of total rewards. A double-trigger structure is noted as potentially deferring taxes until a liquidity event.
Shield Insights
What We Do
At Shield you won't wait years to see your work reach the field. You'll build hardware and software that operates in the real world right now, in the hands of the people who depend on it. Hivemind, our AI pilot, has been flying since 2018. It has flown more than 30 platforms, including an F-16, and it now sits under a U.S. Air Force production contract for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. When you write code or shape a system here, you contribute to technology with a proven flight record and a clear production future. V-BAT flies intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions with an operational record that stretches from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific. It delivers eyes where they matter most, in the most demanding conditions on earth. The teams behind it watch their work get tested where the stakes are real. X-BAT takes its first flight this year. It's an AI-piloted fighter that needs no runway, built to operate where traditional aircraft can't. Join now and you help shape a program at its earliest, most formative stage. That's the kind of ground-floor work that defines a career. Do the most impactful work of your life, on problems that matter. Autonomy at this level asks a lot of you. You'll take on problems in perception, planning, and control that few teams anywhere are equipped to solve. You'll work across disciplines, from aerospace and robotics to machine learning and systems engineering, alongside people who hold themselves to an exacting standard and expect the same from you. Our mission is clear: protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. That purpose runs through every decision, every design review, and every deployment. It's why the work here carries a weight you can feel. Ready to join our mission? Explore our open roles and find where you fit.
Why Work With Us
Founded in 2015 by a former Navy SEAL, Shield builds AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft. Veterans aren't an afterthought here, they're at every level. It's why the work carries weight: AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft flying real missions, from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, protecting service members and civilians.
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Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
