Validation and Reliability Engineer

Gradient’s mission is to cool the world by transforming every home to be more comfortable and healthy for the people who inhabit it — without compromising the environment. Today, heating and cooling equipment emit more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector, and expansion in the use of cooling is projected to double these emissions in the next 30 years. However, comfortable buildings are critical for health and productivity, especially among communities that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Gradient’s vision is a future where everyone has access to comfortable buildings that are fully decarbonized. Our launch product is a direct-to-consumer high-efficiency and low-carbon heat pump.

As a Validation & Reliability Engineer, you will be responsible for ensuring delivery of high quality and reliable products to our customers. You will coordinate engineering efforts across multiple disciplines to develop validation test plans for mechanical components, electrical components, thermal components, and full systems. You will design and run reliability tests, and analyze the data from them to understand lifetime risks. You will summarize the results from validation and reliability testing across all teams, and communicate this information to relevant stakeholders to drive decisions about product maturity and development goals.

We are looking for…

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of validation test plans across the mechanical, electrical, thermal, and systems engineering teams
• Collaborate with engineers across teams to identify any gaps in test coverage
• Develop test plans to understand component-level and system-level reliability
• Design, build, and run system-level tests, process data, and perform statistical analyses to assess system lifetime
• Use reliability analysis to identify high-risk components and subsystems early in the product design cycle
• Assist with root-cause analysis of failures that occur during testing and in the field
• Incorporate learnings into cross-functional product development
• Approximately 50% time doing hands-on work, 50% time doing planning/organizing/analysis

Desired Qualifications:

• BS in Engineering + at least 2 years of engineering experience with shipped products
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional engineering efforts
• Fundamental understanding of reliability and statistical methods
• Experience with engineering testing and data analysis
• Experience with failure analysis and root-cause analysis
• Proficient with instrumentation and data collection, e.g. using LabVIEW
• Proficient with data analysis and statistics, e.g. using Matlab, Python/SciPy, R
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to cross-functional audiences 

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience with ALT/HALT
• Familiarity with air conditioning units/heat pumps
• Familiarity with quality engineering

Benefits 

• Equity
• Medical/vision/dental/life/disability insurance
• 401k
• Paid parental leave
• Professional Development Stipend
• Commuter benefits
• Unlimited PTO

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive company. We seek to create a culture where everyone can belong because we believe that people do their best work when they can show up every day as their authentic selves. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives.

Gradient Comfort is an equal opportunity employer. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law.