Vice President, Electrical Engineering
Mainspring Energy · Menlo Park, CA
- Level
- Director+
- Team
- Reliability
- Degree
- Required
- Experience asked
- 16+ years
- Industry
- Industrial
- Posted
- 9 days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A director-level reliability role at Mainspring Energy (industrial) in Menlo Park, CA. Utility-scale generators, inverters, or microgrid systems, from initial topology and rapid prototyping through DFM, DFT, and high-volume utility-grade scaling.
- They ask for
- 16+ years · degree required
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 (16+ 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.
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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If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 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.
- Sustaining Controls Engineer · Controls
- Senior Reaction Controls Engineer · Controls · Senior
- Senior/Staff Materials Process Engineer · Process · Senior
- Senior Materials and Process Engineer · Process · Senior
- Staff Materials and Process Engineer · Process · Senior
- Director, Reliability Engineering · Reliability · Director+
Full description from Mainspring EnergyAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
Responsibilities
- ◆Lead all electrical hardware development for complex power electronics and controls boards, both inside the Linear Generator and also all of the grid integration equipment
- ◆Manage the development systems and processes, product deliverables and roadmap, strategy and goals
- ◆Manage a high-performing electrical team and work in close coordination with the controls and software teams
- ◆Partner with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Quality to optimize products for DFM and cost
- ◆Drive the compliance strategy to secure all critical regulatory certifications
Required Qualifications
- ✓Degree electrical engineering with 16+ years of experience, including 10+ years managing multi-disciplinary engineering teams
- ✓Proven track record of commercializing heavy industrial power hardware, e.g. utility-scale generators, inverters, or microgrid systems, from initial topology and rapid prototyping through DFM, DFT, and high-volume utility-grade scaling
- ✓Proven success growing and managing technical teams
- ✓Experience designing complex systems that require complex engineering, risk, cost, and
requirements
tradeoffs to co-optimize across a wide variety of disciplines, e.g. firmware/software, thermal, mechanical, electrical, supply chain, reliability, systems, etc.
- ✓Thrives in a fast-paced startup environment - building the company while building the product
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
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
The Linear Generator is unlike any other generator technology on the market - it is a system that couples a chemical reaction and thermally-driven expansion directly to a linear motor for energy generation and control - called the Adaptive Pressure Cycle. This puts the controls and power electronics at the center of the design, and we’re looking for a leader who can thrive in a dynamic environment with many systems-level tradeoffs to balance. It is important that they have a deep understanding in many of the critical areas: power electronics / motors / inverters, PCBA designs / mixed-signal routing, low-noise analog signal conditioning and high-EMI environments.
They must also have significant practical experience bringing power electronics to market, with a good understanding of high volume manufacturing and attaining high quality and reliability at low cost.
This person must be an excellent leader who personifies our core values and can grow the team to accomplish our goals. This position reports to the SVP of Engineering, and is expected to be onsite at least 60% of the time.