Product Testing and Reliability Engineer (Electronics Focus)

Gridware exists to enhance and protect the mother of all networks: the electrical grid. The grid touches everything, and when it grinds to a halt, the consequences can be dire: wildfires burn, land is destroyed, property is damaged, progress stops, and lives are lost.

Our team engineers an advanced sensing system to continuously analyze both the electrical and mechanical behavior of grid assets. Utilizing high-precision sensor arrays, the system identifies and allows preemptive mitigation of faults. The technology has been proven with utilities to bolster safety, reliability, and reduce customer outage durations. The demand for power will only increase. We protect the grid of today while we build the grid of tomorrow.

Gridware is privately held and backed by the best climate-tech and Silicon Valley investors. We are headquartered in the Bay Area in northern California.

About the Role

As a product testing and reliability engineer at Gridware, you will be responsible for quantifying the longevity of our product and helping simulate real-world events to advance our detection capabilities. You’ll help us meet the challenge of getting to three and four nines of reliability we need to protect the power grid and prevent the next big blaze, and validate the performance of the 12 different sensors in our devices across a wide variety of environmental conditions. You’ll work side-by-side with a friendly but driven team of mechanical, electrical, software, and firmware engineers and data scientists that have built technologies from satellites to novel batteries and ultra-precise cooking devices to secure OS’s and industrial-scale logistics software.

Responsibilities

• Oversee reliability testing and analysis through the entire product lifecycle, focused on the electronic components of the system, working very closely with mechanical-focused Test & Reliability engineer. There is likely to be significant crossover between the domains in any case.
• Develop and execute realistic environmental stress tests for the electronic components (i.e. not focused on enclosure waterproofing, but worrying about lifetime across temperature and humidity cycling, etc.)
• Lead and document FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) and root cause analysis for electronics
• Develop acceleration models and accelerated tests for electrical systems
• Build automation scripts to run extended tests
• Develop new reliability test specifications and procedures
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement mitigations for reliability risks
• Study and document how nature (animals, atmospheric conditions/composition, sunlight and weather) affects our products
• Build and/or procure prototype measurement equipment capable of detecting and simulating various physical quantities within a complex system
• Design and execute experiments to demonstrate proof-of-concept detection methods
• Collaborate across the organization to create short- and long-term development plans to efficiently evaluate a plethora of research concepts
• Have good common sense, hands-on practical experience and the ability to work independently without heavy supervision

To move forward in the application process, you should have:

• 5+ years experience in technical industry, especially research & development environment or product validation and verification/reliability testing
• Direct experience developing and implementing measurement systems, preferably with experience procuring and working with 3rd party devices for research purposes
• Knowledge of accelerated lifetime testing methods, analysis tools and statistics
• Demonstrated experience developing research plans and rapidly eliminating non-viable paths
• Good network of test labs and sources of test equipment
• Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Materials Science, or equivalent discipline
• Some Python development experience

Your application will have a higher chance of standing out, if you have one (or more) of the following skills or experiences. If you, however, have all the required skills but none of the bonus skills, we encourage you to apply.

• Knowledge of industry test standards including ASTM, MIL, JEDEC, and IEC
• Electromechanical background designing things with moving components
• Strong background and understanding of physics/mechanics (ex. vibrations, elastic theory, spectroscopy, electricity and magnetism background a bonus)