About the roleAalo is seeking a Senior Reliability Engineer to lead reliability engineering across components, subsystems, and modular assemblies-establishing the analytical and experimental basis for reliability estimates, identifying critical failure modes, and helping teams translate requirements into robust designs and verification plans.
A key responsibility is reviewing and developing experiments for reliability estimation, including assessing sample sizes, test conditions, statistical models, and acceptance criteria, and developing strategies such as accelerated-life, degradation, and system-level testing.
This hands-on, cross-functional role requires rigorous statistical judgment and close collaboration with design, test, manufacturing, quality, safety, and systems engineering teams.
What you'll doReliability Program Development & Application:- Own and advance Aalo's reliability engineering methods for components, subsystems, and modular assemblies.
- Develop reliability requirements, allocations, predictions, and verification strategies throughout the product lifecycle.
- Select and apply appropriate statistical models, such as Weibull and lognormal life models, survival analysis, Bayesian methods, reliability growth models, and physics-of-failure approaches.
- Develop statistically defensible approaches for estimating reliability when test articles, time, or failure data are limited.
- Analyze test and field data to estimate failure rates, life distributions, confidence intervals, and uncertainty.
- Combine test evidence, analysis, supplier data, operating experience, and engineering judgment into traceable reliability estimates.
Design of Experiments Review & Execution:- Review or develop designs of experiments intended to estimate or demonstrate reliability, including test objectives and measurable responses, sample-size and statistical-power calculations, factor selection and interaction effects, environmental and operational stress profiles, censoring and stopping criteria, confidence bounds, and applicability of component-level results to modular assemblies.
- Create and execute designs of experiments for reliability estimation, including accelerated-life testing, degradation testing, highly accelerated testing, and combined-stress testing.
- Work with test engineering to define instrumentation, data-acquisition requirements, test fixtures, stress conditions, and data-quality controls.
Analysis & Risk Assessment:- Lead or support FMEA/FMECA, fault-tree analysis, reliability block diagrams, common-cause evaluations, and root-cause investigations.
- Assess interfaces and dependencies within modular assemblies, including failure propagation, load sharing, redundancy, maintainability, and integration risk.
- Identify and evaluate uncertainties and assumptions in reliability models and estimates.
Quality & Assurance:- Create reliability plans, reports, models, test protocols, and technical justifications suitable for internal design reviews and external scrutiny.
- Ensure reliability methods, scope, and level of rigor are consistent with the maturity of the design and the requirements of safety-critical systems.
- Strengthen and maintain repeatable, scalable reliability practices and documentation across Aalo.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:- Partner with design engineers to identify reliability risks early and recommend design changes that improve robustness, inspectability, maintainability, and service life.
- Collaborate with manufacturing and supplier-quality teams to evaluate process variation and its effect on product reliability.
- Work closely with safety and systems engineering teams to relate component and subsystem reliability estimates to system-level performance and risk.
- Mentor engineers and strengthen reliability and experimental-design practices across Aalo.
Required QualificationsEducation:- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Nuclear, Systems, Materials, Aerospace, or another relevant engineering discipline from an accredited institution.
Experience:- Minimum of seven (7) years of relevant experience in reliability engineering, product assurance, test engineering, or a closely related field.
- Demonstrated experience developing and critically reviewing designs of experiments for reliability estimation or demonstration.
- Strong knowledge of reliability statistics, life-data analysis, confidence intervals, sample-size determination, and accelerated testing.
- Experience applying reliability methods to physical components and integrated hardware assemblies.
- Proficiency with methods such as FMEA/FMECA, fault-tree analysis, reliability block diagrams, reliability growth, and root-cause analysis.
- Ability to distinguish between qualification testing, reliability estimation, reliability demonstration, and screening-and to design tests appropriate to each objective.
- Experience working with incomplete, censored, sparse, or heterogeneous reliability data.
Preferred Qualifications- Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in Reliability Engineering, Statistics, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline.
- Experience in nuclear energy, aerospace, defense, automotive, industrial equipment, or another highly regulated or safety-critical industry.
- Familiarity with probabilistic risk assessment and the relationship between component reliability estimates and system-level risk models.
- Experience with Bayesian reliability methods and combining test data with prior information or operating experience.
- Knowledge of physics-of-failure modeling, environmental qualification, thermal cycling, vibration, radiation effects, corrosion, fatigue, wear, or other relevant degradation mechanisms.
- Experience evaluating reliability across hierarchical systems, from individual parts to subsystems and modular assemblies.
- Proficiency with statistical and reliability tools such as Python, R, JMP, Minitab, MATLAB, ReliaSoft, or equivalent software.
- Certified Reliability Engineer or comparable professional certification.
Core Competencies- Strong technical writing and communication skills.
- Rigorous statistical judgment and analytical problem-solving ability.
- Ability to work effectively across design, test, manufacturing, quality, safety, and systems teams.
- Adaptability in a fast-paced, evolving R&D environment.
- Commitment to quality assurance, safety culture, and the rigor expected of safety-critical systems.
Requirements: - Based in the United States
- Willing to work on-site in Austin, TX
What We Offer:- Paid Time Off
- Corporate Gym Membership
Additional Information: Aalo Atomics provides a collaborative and supportive work environment, opportunities for professional growth, intellectually challenging careers, and competitive compensation. Direct applicants only. No recruiters or staffing agencies, please.
