System Reliability Engineer Program Manager (Defense)

Location: Huntington Beach, California, United States; on-site. Up to 50% travel.

Salary: $140,000–$180,000 per year, plus equity.

Company

hirify.global is a startup defense technology company developing next-generation autonomous and decentralized defense platforms.

What you will do

• Own the system reliability program across architecture, design, integration, qualification, production, and field operations.
• Define reliability objectives, allocations, assumptions, and evidence requirements for integrated mechanical, electrical, software-enabled, and propulsion systems.
• Maintain reliability block diagrams, system FMECA, fault trees, interface-risk assessments, and single-point-failure analyses.
• Define qualification, environmental, screening, accelerated-life, and integrated-system tests based on mission risks and failure hypotheses.
• Lead system-level failure investigations using teardown evidence, test data, manufacturing records, supplier information, and field observations.
• Drive failure reporting, corrective action, reliability growth, and cross-functional risk-mitigation workflows.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in systems, mechanical, electrical, aerospace, or reliability engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
• 10+ years of experience in system reliability, hardware reliability, failure analysis, test engineering, or complex electromechanical systems engineering.
• Experience with reliability block diagrams, FMEA/FMECA, fault-tree analysis, root-cause analysis, or comparable reliability methods.
• Experience allocating system reliability requirements to components and sub-assemblies and integrating evidence into platform-level decisions.
• Ability to define tests and mitigations from incomplete reliability data, failure hypotheses, or field evidence.
• Ability to lead cross-functional technical work and communicate risk-based reliability tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.

Nice to have

• Experience in aerospace, defense, UAS, propulsion, robotics, autonomous systems, automotive, or other high-consequence hardware.
• Experience with environmental qualification, accelerated-life testing, reliability demonstration, screening, or integrated-system test campaigns.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-1629, MIL-HDBK-217, ARP4761, or comparable standards.
• Experience with FRACAS, field-failure tracking, closed-loop corrective action, reliability-growth planning, warranty, or recall analysis.
• Experience building reliability programs in startup, high-growth manufacturing, or regulated hardware environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive base salary with performance-based incentives and equity participation.
• Healthcare, dental, vision, retirement savings, and paid time off.
• Professional development funding for continuing education, training, and career growth.
• Work on autonomous defense platforms with cross-functional collaboration across systems, design, avionics, mechanical, manufacturing, supply chain, test, quality, and field operations.
• Employment requires U.S. work authorization; the role may involve access to EAR- and ITAR-controlled information without export-license sponsorship.