Manufacturing Reliability Engineer (Austin, TX; 50% travel to Milwaukee, WI)

Job description

**What we’re doing isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.** Diligent builds helpful robots that work safely and autonomously in real world environments. We move quickly, solve messy problems, and care deeply about reliability at scale. We’re hiring a Manufacturing Reliability Engineer to own production test for our robots at our contract manufacturer: you’ll design and run robust end-to-end test protocols, provision fleets of robots for production, and own the KPIs that define production quality. ***This role is based in Austin, TX. However, the position will require 50% travel to the Milwaukee, WI area and requires close collaboration across software, hardware, operations, and product engineering teams.*** **Key Responsibilities** - **End-to-end test process ownership.** Create, validate, and maintain production test protocols and gating criteria from incoming inspection through final test and shipment. - **Provisioning of bots.** Design and operate provisioning flows (imaging, firmware deployment, configuration, validation) and the tooling/fixtures needed to provision and handoff robots for production. - **KPIs and continuous improvement.** Own key production metrics — First Pass Yield (FPY), cycle time, and test coverage — and drive continuous improvements to meet throughput and quality targets. - **Test automation & infrastructure.** Architect, implement, and maintain automated test frameworks, harnesses, and test rigs used at the CM site. Ensure tests are stable, fast, and provide actionable failure data. - **Cross-functional escalation & RCA.** Lead root-cause analysis for field and production failures; coordinate corrective actions with design, firmware, and CM engineering to close quality loops. - **On-site production leadership.** Be the onsite technical authority at the contract manufacturer: train operators, debug failures on the line, and continuously refine processes with CM partners. **What Success Looks Like** - Improved FPY and reduced rework rates across production builds. - Reduced per-unit cycle time for test/provisioning while increasing test coverage. - Stable, fully automated provisioning flow with minimal manual intervention. **Basic Qualifications** - 5+ years experience in production/test engineering for complex electro-mechanical products (robotics, medical devices, consumer electronics, or similar). - Proven ownership of E2E production test processes and production provisioning at a contract manufacturer (on-site experience strongly preferred). - Deep familiarity with test protocol development: test specification writing, fixture design, automated test implementation, and validation. - Strong hands-on experience with firmware provisioning and validation for sensors and compute (sensor FW + compute/host FW). - Broad technical knowledge across systems integration (ES integration), sensors (e.g., cameras, LiDAR, IMU or similar), embedded compute platforms, and networking/provisioning. - Excellent debugging skills across hardware, firmware, and system software; able to triage complex cross-domain failures. - Strong data-driven mindset: experienced with KPIs (FPY, cycle time, test coverage), statistical process control, and metrics reporting. Outstanding communication skills and experience working closely with contract manufacturers, operators, and cross-functional engineering teams. - Comfortable being onsite full-time at a contract manufacturer and traveling as needed. **Preferred Qualifications** - Experience with robotics stacks (ROS or equivalent) and robotic sensor calibration/test. - Familiarity with manufacturing automation tools, CI for embedded systems, and test frameworks (Python, pytest, LabVIEW, or similar). - Experience with provisioning large fleets (device identity, secure image signing, automated configuration).