Test & Reliability Engineer, Robotics Hardware

FieldAI’s Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field. Hardware Team:  The Hardware Team at FieldAI develops perception and compute payloads that power autonomous robotics systems in complex real world environments. Our work spans the full hardware stack — designing and integrating sensing systems (LiDAR, camera, TOF, IMU, GPS), embedded compute (CPUs, GPUs, microcontrollers, Linux, ROS), electrical systems (power distribution, communication), and mechanical components (structures, thermal regulation, ingress protection). The team focuses on both development (research, design, prototyping, testing) and operations (production, testing, QA, debugging). We're a small, fast-moving team, and we care deeply about improving: 1) core capabilities, 2) system reliability, 3) system scalability. As a growing team we are also building operational systems and procedures from the ground up.   Test & Reliability Engineer: As a Test & Reliability Engineer on the Hardware Team at FieldAI, you will build out our testing and quality control infrastructure across mechanical, electrical, embedded, and sensor systems. Your work ensures hardware is ready to ship and holds up reliably in diverse, challenging field environments such as construction, energy, and mining.  You will partner with engineers throughout the design process to ensure systems meet requirements, develop the tests that validate them before deployment, as well as identify and mitigate issues with the deployed fleet. You may also work across multiple embodiments, including quadrupeds, humanoids, and wheeled platforms. What You Will Get To Do

1. Test & Validate System Design

• Test & Validation Infrastructure: Work with the team to set up testing infrastructure including internal facilities and relationships with third-party test labs and certification bodies.

• Mechanical Testing: Conduct tests such as thermal / shock/ vibration testing, HALT/HASS (Highly Accelerated Life Testing), ingress protection testing (IP54, IP65), and destructive/non-destructive evaluation (X-ray, CT scan).

• Electrical Testing: Test for overcurrent and overvoltage conditions, run EMI/EMC emissions and immunity testing. Manage FCC and CE certification with external test labs.

• Sensor Validation: Test sensor performance (LiDAR, depth cameras, IMU, GPS) across diverse environmental conditions. Validate intrinsic/extrinsic calibration procedures both in-lab and in the field environments.

• Safety & Compliance: Support compliance with relevant safety and quality standards (e.g., ISO 26262 functional safety, SIL, ISO 9001, MIL-STD-810) via third-party certification bodies, and track evolving requirements as the company scales toward global deployments.
  
  

2. Manufacturing & Scaling Quality Control

• Incoming & Outbound Quality: Develop incoming quality control (IQC) and outbound quality checks (OQC). Design and execute sampling/AQL plans, including pulling sample units for testing.

• Process & Infrastructure: Build test processes, standards, and best practices, evolving them as the team and fleet scale. Maintain test procedures, equipment logs, and calibration traceability records. Serve as an internal evaluator of production and shipping readiness.

• Build & Supply Chain: Support production scaling and manufacturing technique scale-up. Work with vendors and contract manufacturers on component qualification, supply chain considerations, and quality-related testing.
  
  

3. Fleet Health & Reliability

• Fleet Health Monitoring: Monitor fleet health and uptime, conduct fault testing, performance testing, and system-level validation across integrated mechanical, electrical, embedded, and sensor hardware, and track calibration status across deployed units.

• Failure & Reliability Tracking: Track and report failure rates and reliability metrics (MTBF/MTTR), both internally during development and testing, and across global deployments.

• Fleet Maintenance, Debug, & Retrofits: Work directly with technicians on the test floor and in the field. Support component retrofits, root-cause/RMA failure analysis, and fleet maintenance and calibration on deployed hardware.

What You Have

• Education: B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field.
  Experience Level: Minimum of 4+ years of hands-on experience in hardware testing, quality, or reliability engineering. We welcome candidates across mid-level to senior and staff levels.

• Broad Hardware Testing: Experience spanning mechanical and electrical test domains, including environmental and reliability testing (thermal, vibration, HALT, IP54/IP65 ingress testing), run in-house and through third-party test labs and equipment vendors.

• Quality Control: Experience with quality control processes such as incoming QC (IQC), outbound QC (OQC), and sampling/AQL, ideally in ISO 9001-aligned environments.

• Cross Functional Robotic Skills: Comfort working across electrical, mechanical, embedded, and sensor (LiDAR, depth camera) systems, and across embodiments such as wheeled platforms, quadrupeds, and humanoids, to evaluate and validate integrated hardware.

• Communication Protocols: Familiarity with common robotics communication interfaces (USB, Ethernet, CAN, I2C, GMSL) as they relate to test and validation.

• Debugging: Comfort with hardware/software debugging tools (oscilloscopes, logs, power monitors, EMI/FCC analyzers) for fault and failure analysis.

• Systems Thinking: Ability to diagnose and evaluate readiness across mechanical, electrical, thermal, and software layers.

What Will Set You Apart

• Scaling: Experience taking systems from prototype to large scale production.

• Field Environments: Experience developing and testing systems for harsh, diverse industrial field environments such as construction, energy, and mining, across global deployments.

• Deployed Robotics: Experience working on robotics deployed in real world settings such as autonomous vehicles, drones, or ruggedized robots, spanning wheeled, quadruped, or humanoid embodiments.

• Systems Level Robotics: Fluency across mechanical, electrical, and software systems.

• Reliability Engineering: Background in functional safety compliance (ISO 26262, SIL), MTBF/MTTR reliability metrics, fleet maintenance and health monitoring, RMA/failure analysis, and building a test or quality function from the ground up.

Our salary range is generous and we consider each individual’s background and experience when determining final compensation. Base pay may vary based on role scope, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine, California market.   Why Join FieldAI in Irvine? In Irvine, you will work where the robots are. Our local team builds and tests systems on real hardware with real sensors, then ships them to operate in unstructured, previously unknown environments around the world. We are solving one of robotics’ hardest challenges: reliable deployment outside the lab. Our Field Foundational Models™ raise the bar for perception, planning, localization, and manipulation, with an emphasis on explainability and safety for real-world use. You will collaborate with a world-class team that thrives on creativity, resilience, and bold thinking. We bring deep experience from organizations such as DeepMind, NASA JPL, Boston Dynamics, NVIDIA, Amazon, Tesla Autopilot, Cruise, Zoox, Toyota Research Institute, and SpaceX, along with a track record of field deployments and strong performance in DARPA challenge segments.   Be Part of the Next Robotics Revolution We are looking for builders who want their work to leave the whiteboard and show up on robots. If you enjoy tackling tough, uncharted questions and working across disciplines, you will find your people here. Our teams span AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication, all focused on shipping systems that perform in the real world.   Our headquarters is in Irvine, and we partner closely with teams there as well as colleagues across the US and around the world. Join us in Southern California and help define what dependable, field-ready autonomy looks like.   We value diverse perspectives and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We evaluate candidates and employees based on merit, qualifications, and performance, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or any other legally protected status.