Renewable Energy, Energy Technology, Clean Energy

Director, Reliability Engineering

Menlo Park, CAHybridFull TimeDirectorPosted 2 months agoVisa sponsorship available

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Required skills

reliability strategy
roadmap
reliability testing
mechanical stress tests
shock
vibration
environmental testing
reliability metrics
MTBF
warranty/field return trends

Nice to have

hardware manufacturing
energy equipment manufacturing
industrial equipment manufacturing
scaling production
low-volume to high-volume
electrical system concepts

Role summary

Mainspring Energy is seeking a Director of Reliability Engineering to build and lead the reliability function for their fuel-flexible, low-emissions power solutions. This role involves owning the reliability strategy and roadmap, building and developing a team of reliability engineers, and acting as the senior voice for reliability across Product Engineering, R&D, and Manufacturing. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in reliability, test, or quality engineering for hardware/manufacturing environments, with demonstrated experience in scaling teams and influencing design decisions. Responsibilities include overseeing reliability testing, defining metrics, establishing processes like FMEA and HALT, and guiding compliance-relevant design decisions.

About Mainspring

Mainspring Energy manufactures and delivers fuel-flexible, low-emissions local power solutions that rapidly add new capacity and deliver reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power. The company began commercial shipments of its Mainspring Linear Generators in 2020 and today has hundreds of megawatts in advanced development and field operations for leading Fortune 500 companies, data centers, and utilities. Mainspring also partners with global energy leaders including AEP, NextEra Energy Resources, Schneider Electric, and more.

The core values that ground our work, guide our decisions, and connect us together:

Pragmatic Optimism
Excellence without Ego
Proactive Collaboration

Job Overview

Mainspring Energy is growing rapidly and has begun to manufacture its Linear Generators in volume, and reliability is a crucial element to the success of the product. We're looking for a reliability engineering leader to build and run the function that evaluates design risk and quantifies and reduces it to acceptable levels for our target markets.In this role, you'll own the reliability strategy and roadmap, build and develop a team of reliability engineers, and act as the senior voice for reliability across Product Engineering, R&D, and Manufacturing.

Responsibilities

Directly lead the team who is responsible for everything related to reliability testing including mechanical stress tests, shock, vibration and environmental testing.

Continue to build, lead, and grow a team of reliability engineers, setting hiring plans, org structure and career development paths as the team scales with production volume.

Own the reliability roadmap and testing strategy across the product lifecycle, from design risk assessment through field performance, balancing rigor against Mainspring's fast product cadence.

Closely partner with the rest of the test engineering team to define and track reliability testing performed on linear generators.

Define and track reliability metrics and goals (e.g., MTBF, values at risk, warranty/field return trends) and report program health and risk posture to senior engineering and business leadership.

Establish and continuously improve reliability processes and standards — FMEA, HALT, root-cause methodology, CAPA — as scalable, repeatable systems rather than one-off engineering exercises.

Serve as the senior reliability partner to Product Engineering, R&D, and Manufacturing leadership, influencing design decisions and trade-offs at the architecture and program level.

Lead cross-functional FMEA efforts for design, process, and maintenance, ensuring the right stakeholders are engaged and risk decisions are made and documented.

Represent reliability in design reviews, program gate reviews, and executive updates, translating technical risk into business-relevant terms.

Guide cross-functional teams on compliance-relevant design decisions (UL, NFPA, IEC) for electrical and fuel system components, ensuring reliability considerations are built in early rather than tested later.

Maintain enough technical depth to review and challenge test plans, failure analyses, and root-cause investigations led by the team — this is a technically credible leader, not a pure people-manager.

Ensure the team's verification test plans are grounded in system/sub-system specs and industry-standard protocols.

Champion investment in test infrastructure, automation, and data analysis capability to keep pace with rapid cycles of learning.

Qualifications

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field.

10+ years of experience in reliability, test, or quality engineering for mechanical, electrical, or electromechanical systems, including 3+ years in a formal people-management role (not just projects).

Demonstrated experience building or significantly scaling a reliability, quality, or test engineering team in a hardware/manufacturing environment.

Deep, hands-on background in FMEA, HALT, root-cause analysis, and CAPA processes (RCA, 8D), with the credibility to coach others and set standards.

Track record of influencing design and engineering decisions at the cross-functional/leadership level.

Strong communication skills, with experience presenting reliability risk and program status to senior/executive stakeholders.

Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment where systems, processes, and team structure are still being built.

Preferred

Experience in hardware or energy/industrial equipment manufacturing, ideally at a company scaling from low-volume to high-volume production.

Understanding of electrical system concepts, HV/LV electronics reliability, and failure characterization techniques (X-ray, CT, cross-sectioning, optical microscopy).

Experience with compliance testing and standards (UL, IEC, NFPA).

Familiarity with data analysis and reliability statistics tooling (Python, MATLAB, Weibull++, JMP) sufficient to guide and review team output.

Does your experience not meet all of our posted requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to positions unless they meet every listed requirement. At Mainspring, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive, flexible, and collaborative environment, so if you want to help us transition the world to clean and affordable electricity, and don’t meet all posted requirements for a particular role, we’d still love to hear from you. Mainspring can sometimes be flexible enough to shift responsibilities for the right person, or otherwise identify open or upcoming roles that may better fit your professional background.

In more traditional words, Mainspring Energy, Inc is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.

This compensation and benefits information is based on Mainspring Energy's estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future. We generally do not negotiate on salary once we have made an offer. The level of pay within the range will depend on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant prior experience and/or education, or particular skills and expertise. New hires joining the company tend to be paid within the starting base pay range noted above, with opportunities to increase pay over time based on development of additional skills, competencies, and company-specific knowledge.

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