SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.

SR. FLIGHT RELIABILITY ENGINEER (SYSTEM SAFETY & RELIABILITY)

This team is responsible for figuring out how to keep personnel, and passengers safe as SpaceX works to fly novel, challenging missions at high cadence on the Starship vehicle. You will have the opportunity to work with all engineering teams to help understand failure scenarios that inform the design of autonomous, high-reliability vehicles. You will work with external partners at NASA to ensure launches satisfy qualitative and quantitative risk criteria. This role will involve figuring out effective implementation of flight safety and system safety strategies in support of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) - our first missions to the Moon!

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Perform quantitative and qualitative reliability analyses for complex systems
  • Review company-wide lessons learned and support integrating those learnings in new designs and operations to increase safety and reliability
  • Review systems, identify failure modes, scenarios (i.e. work to put strong engineering controls in place, with the right verifications)
  • Work with engineers to review and mitigate risks and hazards
  • Work with design reliability and operational teams to define approaches, assumptions, and success criteria for integrating high reliability with rapid manufacturing and launch operations
  • Simulate a variety of failure modes that the launch vehicle may experience and the impact they have on achieving a safe orbit and meeting mission requirements
  • Write technical documents for internal and external customers in support of contract milestones, licensing efforts, or other customer requirements, including hazard reports
  • Provide mission support to Starship, Falcon, Dragon operations and reliability organizations as needed

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline, physics, statistics or math
  • 5+ years of experience with engineering problem solving in design, analysis, or test of systems

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

  • Advanced degree in engineering with reliability analysis experience through research and/or internships
  • Familiarity with launch vehicle architectures and fundamental systems (avionics, propulsion, structures, guidance, navigation and control, etc.)
  • Experience with Failure Mode, Effects & Criticality Analysis (FMECA), fault trees, distribution fitting, or hypothesis testing
  • Programming skills, preferably with familiarity in MATLAB and Python.
  • Demonstrated ability to code in Python and other languages
  • Ability to think out-of-the-box, motivate people to think imaginatively of how things can break
  • Experience with physics, statistics, probability theory
  • Ability to explain the above concepts to the lay-person, strong communication skills, ability to work in a multi-disciplinary environment
  • Practical experience in hardware development
  • Professional experience with complex mechanical systems

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:                  

Pay range:      

Build Reliability Engineer/Senior: $125,000.00 - $175,000.00/per year  

Your actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience.

Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package at SpaceX. You may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of company stock, stock options, or long-term cash awards, as well as potential discretionary bonuses and the ability to purchase additional stock at a discount through an Employee Stock Purchase Plan. You will also receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, paid parental leave, and various other discounts and perks. You may also accrue 3 weeks of paid vacation and will be eligible for 10 or more paid holidays per year. Exempt employees are eligible for 5 days of sick leave per year.                

ITAR REQUIREMENTS:

  • To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.  

SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Applicants wishing to view a copy of SpaceX’s Affirmative Action Plan for veterans and individuals with disabilities, or applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application/interview process should notify the Human Resources Department at (310) 363-6000.

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