The Design Reliability Engineer will focus on enhancing the safety and performance of autonomous vehicles through virtual and physical durability development, involving sensor and computer system analysis and optimization strategies.
Eligible from: US only
Job Description
At Zoox, we have set the goal to provide our customers with the highest level of safety and a best-in-class experience while using our fully autonomous vehicles. You will work with a team of world-class engineers with diverse backgrounds, such as robotics, control, and vehicle engineering, to deliver vehicle performance using virtual tools and methodologies. In taking on the virtual and physical durability development, you will work in predicting where the vehicle is within its lifespan and providing maintenance scenarios and optimization strategies.
Responsibilities
In this role, you will:
Set reliability and availability targets. Define top-level hardware availability targets from market requirements and build consensus across product, feature, operations, vehicle engineering, software, and autonomy. Cascade those targets into subsystem and component-level failure budgets for sensors (LiDAR, radar, camera), AI compute, and ECUs, working directly with component owners and the Advanced Hardware and Vehicle Systems Engineering EE teams.
Drive the FMEA process. Drive cross-functional System DFMEA and Supportability FMEA to identify failure mechanisms, system-interaction failure modes, and preventative maintenance opportunities. Define risk classification, FMEA methodology, and mitigation plans.
Drive design mitigations. Partner with hardware and firmware architects on redundancy, thermal management, derating guidelines, and software-level degraded/safe modes, identifying where fault tolerance and fail-operational behavior are needed to support the autonomy safety case.
Prove out designs through test. Using reliability targets, DFMEA outputs, and physics-of-failure principles, partner with validation engineers on virtual and physical test plans combining multi-variable stressors (thermal, vibration, electrical loading, firmware states). Oversee early ALT to establish design margins, latent defects, and acceleration parameters for architectural trade studies. Track and report results in V&V reports.
Define PHM strategy for sensors, compute, and EE systems: available signals, health indicators, degradation models, and failure precursors enabling early fault detection and remaining-useful-life estimation.
Operationalize PHM with software, data, and systems teams across vehicle and backend pipelines, translating reliability risks into monitoring, alerting, and maintenance recommendations.
Close the loop with field data. Use current-fleet telemetry and PHM insights to find improvement opportunities and drive corrective action across design, validation, and operations, feeding lessons learned back into next-gen design.
Requirements
Qualifications
Masters-level engineering or similar technical degree with 10+ years hands on experience in Reliability Engineering
Detailed understanding of relevant sensors, high-performance computers, and ECUs, and typical failure modes and test methods for these components
Deep understanding of reliability data analysis and risk assessment, and how to develop component reliability targets based on functional safety and business objectives
Experience in failure mode assessment, accelerated reliability testing, and advanced field reliability monitoring concepts
Personable with the ability to lead and coach a high-caliber engineering team toward world-class levels of reliability/dependability
Bonus Qualifications
ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer, or similar professional recognition
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