Senior Build Reliability Engineer (Propulsion)Department: Quality
Employment Type: Full Time
Location: Redondo Beach
Compensation: $140,000 - $170,000 / year
DescriptionAs a
Senior Build Reliability Engineer (Propulsion) at Impulse, you will own the connection between design requirements, manufacturing execution, and flight performance for the propulsion hardware. You will work hands-on with technicians, manufacturing engineers, and supporting teams to prevent defects before they occur, rapidly diagnose failures, and continuously improve hardware reliability across spacecraft builds.
Responsibilities- Identify, investigate, and eliminate build defects and failures through root cause analysis and corrective actions both within and outside of your work centers
- Develop inspection requirements, acceptance criteria, and quality control processes aligned with hardware and mission reliability requirements. Assist in closeout inspections
- Perform development testing to guide design decisions and characterize hardware performance
- Provide design-for-reliability guidance during design reviews and build planning
- Optimize MRP/ERP system modules for improved hardware trace, data collection, and overall reliability
- Balance inspection and test with lean principles to ensure verifications are both comprehensive and streamlined
- Develop and implement build quality metrics to heighten awareness and to improve quality landscape over time
- Act as a specification custodian for inspection plans, storage and handling procedures, process control plans, and more
- Own training and certification of elevated sign-off privileges for manufacturing technicians
- Interface with supply chain to improve vendor hardware quality
- Ensure hardware integrity by holding the line on quality standards, extreme-owning hardware containments, and driving corrective actions to completion
Minimum Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field
- 5+ years of experience in hardware manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, or high-reliability systems
- Demonstrated experience supporting production builds, integration, or test of primary structures and/or complex mechanical or electromechanical systems
- Strong problem-solving skills with demonstrated root cause analysis experience
- Strong theoretical and working knowledge of GD&T
Preferred Skills and Experience- 7+ years of demonstrated build reliability experience with spacecraft, launch vehicles, aviation, robotics, or defense hardware
- Familiarity with AS9100, ISO 9001, or similar quality systems (practical application preferred over documentation focus)
- Demonstrated experience with reliability engineering concepts (FMEA, reliability growth, Weibull analysis)
- Demonstrated background working closely with technicians and production teams
- Demonstrated experience supporting rapid development or prototype-to-production transitions
- Technical familiarity with propulsion assembly such as valves, cryogenics, high-pressure systems, injectors, feedlines, and fluid systems
Additional Information:Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the
form of stock options, and access to
medical, vision & dental coverage as well as
access to a 401(k) retirement plan.
