Lead Electrical Engineer, Hardware Reliability (Starlink) Verified today

About the role

As Lead Electrical Engineer for Starlink hardware reliability, you own the reliability of the Starlink Product hardware from factory to field. You will develop an intimate understanding of the Starlink system from hardware design to manufacturing processes, test procedures, RF, and network operation. You will lead a team focused on minimizing hardware failures and customer downtime. This is high-visibility work that feeds into future product design, involves product launches, and requires regular communication of findings to senior leadership.

Leadership responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers and specialists on hardware reliability and field performance for the Starlink User Terminal Kit, including user terminals, Wi-Fi routers, power supplies, and cables.
• Allocate resources across new product qualification campaigns, production reliability priorities, and field hardware investigations to ensure appropriate technical coverage, timely execution, and rapid troubleshooting of failures.
• Develop individual team members through technical mentorship, clear ownership, and opportunities aligned with individual growth and strategic goals of the Starlink program.
• Set strategy and ownership plans for the team while aligning with management on longer-term development plans.
• Hold partner teams accountable to timelines, goals, and expectations.
• Partner closely with hardware design, software, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to proactively influence current and future designs and maximize reliability across the product lifecycle.

Technical responsibilities

• Manage or lead technical investigations with tight timelines concerning isolated or fleet-wide performance or hardware issues that affect Starlink customers, stemming from test, production, or field findings.
• Develop and execute reliability qualification strategies for new and existing products to maximize field life, minimize early-life failures, and demonstrate readiness for mass production.
• Design and execute environmental, mechanical, electrical, RF, and system-level reliability testing tailored to product architecture, use conditions, and identified failure mechanisms.
• Automate reliability test execution, data analysis, and reporting using appropriate data visualization and engineering tools to improve speed, repeatability, and technical decision-making.
• Define and monitor ongoing reliability testing and monitoring strategies to assess manufacturing process health and identify long-term reliability risks driven by process, material, and component variability.
• Define and monitor critical hardware and performance field metrics, such as product return rates, to identify and investigate product reliability shortcomings.
• Lead root cause investigations for qualification, production, and field failures; identify immediate and underlying failure mechanisms and drive corrective actions to reduce product and process risk.
• Perform telemetry and log analysis as well as hands-on debugging to drive to root cause and corrective action of failed phased-array, Wi-Fi, and power supply PCBAs in the field.
• Oversee production quality activities including containments, material review board (MRB), defect processing, quality metrics, training, and applicable command media for factory compliance.
• Identify manufacturing inefficiencies that impact product reliability and drive process improvements that increase first-pass yield, improve quality, reduce scrap, and accelerate issue detection and resolution.
• Maintain applicable quality system and ISO 9001 requirements.
• Understand Wi-Fi standards and how the Starlink network operates.

Basic qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials engineering, manufacturing engineering, aerospace engineering, or another engineering discipline.
• 2+ years of experience executing complex engineering projects in design qualification, manufacturing, hardware reliability, reliability test, or a production environment.
• 1+ years of experience in a leadership position leading a team of 3+ engineers.

Preferred qualifications

• Master's degree in electrical, mechanical, materials, manufacturing, aerospace engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience developing and executing product qualification or hardware reliability strategies.
• Experience developing objective test, inspection, and acceptance criteria.
• Strong understanding of reliability engineering principles, failure mechanisms, root cause investigation, and risk-based engineering decision-making.
• Experience developing environmental, mechanical, electrical, RF, or system-level test methods.
• Experience with PCB, PCBA, electromechanical assemblies, and complex hardware systems.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate complex hardware failures and drive corrective actions to closure.
• Experience with high-volume manufacturing and transitioning hardware from development into mass production.
• Ability to identify and analyze production process improvements for rate, yield, and quality.
• Working experience in an AS9100, ISO 9001, or equivalent quality management system.