As the Failure Analysis Manager, you will own the technical strategy and execution for a team that investigates why hardware fails and ensures it doesn't fail again. Your team applies electrical fault isolation, physical analysis, and accelerated stress testing to Amazon's most complex hardware, turning ambiguous failures into actionable design improvements.
You will lead a team of highly talented engineers through investigations spanning NPI and field returns, delivering root cause clarity that directly shapes product decisions. You will set the vision for the team's growth, build senior-level partnerships across Amazon's hardware portfolio, and serve as the authoritative voice on failure risk, corrective actions, and recovery plans for critical customer escalations.
Key job responsibilities
- Own root cause failure analysis and reliability testing outcomes across Amazon's hardware portfolio: consumer electronics, spacecrafts, drones, data center infrastructure, robotics, and some others
- Set technical strategy for the team: identify capability gaps, prioritize investment in new analytical methods, and define the roadmap for scaling lab capacity
- Drive cross-functional problem solving that translates failure insights into upstream design, process, and manufacturing changes
- Serve as the primary escalation point for critical hardware quality issues, delivering clear risk assessments and corrective action plans to senior leadership
- Cultivate partnerships with engineering, supply chain, and program teams to position the lab as an indispensable resource across the product lifecycle
- Build and develop a high-performing team: recruit top talent, provide technical mentorship, and create growth paths for engineers with diverse science and engineering backgrounds
A day in the life
You will move fluidly between our office and the lab just down the hallway. You'll oversee a portfolio of investigations and reliability tests at various stages, ensuring your team delivers timely updates, rigorous reports, and clear recommendations that drive corrective action decisions. Beyond day-to-day operations, you will lead special projects to innovate on behalf of customers and expand the Product Integrity team's knowledge base, developing new methodologies to advance materials selection, design, and operational improvements. You will also manage stakeholder relationships across the business, communicating resource needs, project progress, and budget planning as you scale the lab's impact.
About the team
SPICE lab is a Seattle-based R&D team within Amazon's Lab126 subsidiary, partnering with Amazon's most ambitious hardware organizations. We support a growing portfolio of programs including Prime Air, Leo, Mechatronics, AWS, Annapurna, Lab126 Devices, and others. If you are passionate about building the future and want to take part in developing ideas from concept to production, consider joining the SPICE lab team!
Our lab operates across three closely integrated functions: Failure Analysis, Reliability Testing, and Materials Characterization. These disciplines reinforce each other - failure investigations inform test planning, reliability testing reproduces mechanisms to validate root cause hypotheses, and shared analytical techniques underpin materials selection decisions. This role will manage both the Failure Analysis and Reliability Testing teams.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 7+ years of new hardware products development experience
- Master's degree or equivalent in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, material science, physics or equivalent
- Proven leadership experience scaling technical teams and root cause FA capabilities in high-reliability industries
- Strong hands-on capability with established depth across component, board, and system failure domains, and a track record of influencing hardware design decisions at the portfolio level
- Extensive experience resolving critical, systemic quality issues across high-performance hardware programs using structured problem-solving methodologies
- Ability to operate in fast-paced, ambiguous environments, manage competing priorities under tight deadlines, and redirect efforts as business needs evolve
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Expert-level proficiency leading complex investigations from symptom through root cause to verified corrective action, across both NPI and sustained production
- Hands-on experience with physical failure analysis techniques: non-destructive (CT X-ray, optical/UV/thermal imaging, TDR) and destructive (SEM, EDS, FTIR, XRF, cross-sectioning)
- Knowledge of reliability engineering disciplines including accelerated life testing, failure rate modeling, Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA), and Design for Reliability (DfR)
- Experience standing up or maturing lab safety programs, quality management systems, and compliance with industry standards
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, WA, SEATTLE - 151,000.00 - 204,300.00 USD annually
