Director, Reliability Engineering
Mainspring Energy · Menlo Park, CA
- Level
- Director+
- Team
- Reliability
- Degree
- Required
- Experience asked
- 10+ years
- Industry
- Industrial
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A director-level reliability role at Mainspring Energy (industrial) in Menlo Park, CA.
- They ask for
- 10+ years · degree required
- Tools it names
- Root cause, FMEA, CAPA, Automation, Tooling
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026
Reliability Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $115k–$169k.
Median of the low and high ends of 69 live postings that list pay, out of 147 reliability engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 146 other live reliability postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (10+ vs 5+)
Typical $115k–$169k, from 68 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Root cause 71%
- New product launch 41%
- ✓ FMEA 40%
- ✓ Automation 30%
- Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ) 28%
- ✓ Tooling 20%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
Stands out: this posting asks for CAPA, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Reliability team at Mainspring Energy
We found 2 people at this company and state: 2 in this kind of role. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
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Write to Patrick → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
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- 5
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Mainspring Energy in Menlo Park
14 other open roles at this site · 2 people we found in reliability roles at Mainspring Energy.
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- Senior Reaction Controls Engineer · Controls · Senior
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- Senior Materials and Process Engineer · Process · Senior
- Staff Materials and Process Engineer · Process · Senior
Full description from Mainspring EnergyAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Responsibilities
- ◆Directly lead the team who is responsible for everything related to reliability testing including mechanical stress tests, shock, vibration and environmental testing.
- ◆Continue to build, lead, and grow a team of reliability engineers, setting hiring plans, org structure and career development paths as the team scales with production volume.
- ◆Own the reliability roadmap and testing strategy across the product lifecycle, from design risk assessment through field performance, balancing rigor against Mainspring's fast product cadence.
- ◆Closely partner with the rest of the test engineering team to define and track reliability testing performed on linear generators.
- ◆Define and track reliability metrics and goals (e.g., MTBF, values at risk, warranty/field return trends) and report program health and risk posture to senior engineering and business leadership.
- ◆Establish and continuously improve reliability processes and standards — FMEA, HALT, root-cause methodology, CAPA — as scalable, repeatable systems rather than one-off engineering exercises.
- ◆Serve as the senior reliability partner to Product Engineering, R&D, and Manufacturing leadership, influencing design decisions and trade-offs at the architecture and program level.
- ◆Lead cross-functional FMEA efforts for design, process, and maintenance, ensuring the right stakeholders are engaged and risk decisions are made and documented.
- ◆Represent reliability in design reviews, program gate reviews, and executive updates, translating technical risk into business-relevant terms.
- ◆Guide cross-functional teams on compliance-relevant design decisions (UL, NFPA, IEC) for electrical and fuel system components, ensuring reliability considerations are built in early rather than tested later.
- ◆Maintain enough technical depth to review and challenge test plans, failure analyses, and root-cause investigations led by the team — this is a technically credible leader, not a pure people-manager.
- ◆Ensure the team's verification test plans are grounded in system/sub-system specs and industry-standard protocols.
- ◆Champion investment in test infrastructure, automation, and data analysis capability to keep pace with rapid cycles of learning.
Qualifications
- ✓Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field.
- ✓10+ years of experience in reliability, test, or quality engineering for mechanical, electrical, or electromechanical systems, including 3+ years in a formal people-management role (not just projects).
- ✓Demonstrated experience building or significantly scaling a reliability, quality, or test engineering team in a hardware/manufacturing environment.
- ✓Deep, hands-on background in FMEA, HALT, root-cause analysis, and CAPA processes (RCA, 8D), with the credibility to coach others and set standards.
- ✓Track record of influencing design and engineering decisions at the cross-functional/leadership level.
- ✓Strong communication skills, with experience presenting reliability risk and program status to senior/executive stakeholders.
- ✓Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment where systems, processes, and team structure are still being built.
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About Mainspring
Mainspring Energy manufactures and delivers fuel-flexible, low-emissions local power solutions that rapidly add new capacity and deliver reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power. The company began commercial shipments of its Mainspring Linear Generators in 2020 and today has hundreds of megawatts in advanced development and field operations for leading Fortune 500 companies, data centers, and utilities. Mainspring also partners with global energy leaders including AEP, NextEra Energy Resources, Schneider Electric, and more.
The core values that ground our work, guide our decisions, and connect us together:
Pragmatic Optimism
Excellence without Ego
Proactive Collaboration
Job Overview
Mainspring Energy is growing rapidly and has begun to manufacture its Linear Generators in volume, and reliability is a crucial element to the success of the product. We're looking for a reliability engineering leader to build and run the function that evaluates design risk and quantifies and reduces it to acceptable levels for our target markets.In this role, you'll own the reliability strategy and roadmap, build and develop a team of reliability engineers, and act as the senior voice for reliability across Product Engineering, R&D, and Manufacturing.
Preferred
- +Experience in hardware or energy/industrial equipment manufacturing, ideally at a company scaling from low-volume to high-volume production.
- +Understanding of electrical system concepts, HV/LV electronics reliability, and failure characterization techniques (X-ray, CT, cross-sectioning, optical microscopy).
- +Experience with compliance testing and standards (UL, IEC, NFPA).
- +Familiarity with data analysis and reliability statistics tooling (Python, MATLAB, Weibull++, JMP) sufficient to guide and review team output.