Hardware Reliability Engineer

Skip is on a mission to make life joyful through powered movement.

Movement is a powerful way to build physical, mental and social health. Yet it is elusive for 2 billion people due to age, injury, or disability. We are building products that will restore mobility for millions and enable a new frontier of joyful movement experiences. We want to build a future where a grandparent can easily outrun their grandkids and no one is left behind at the trailhead.

Skip is a 22-person early-stage start-up that spun out of Google X in 2023. With deep cross-disciplinary expertise and key partnerships (e.g. with Arc’teryx) we are uniquely positioned to launch the first commercially successful wearable robotic device, the MO/GO, develop a platform to launch future Movewear products and transform millions of lives in the coming years.

The Role

As our Hardware Reliability Engineer, you will be the person who makes sure our products don't just work in the lab -- they work on real humans, in real conditions, for a long time. You will own the reliability testing program for the MO/GO and future Skip products, from defining test plans and failure modes through execution, analysis, and closure. On a small team building first-of-kind hardware, reliability isn't a gate at the end of the process -- it's woven into every build.

This is an IC role on a flat team of 22 exceptional engineers where everyone contributes directly. You'll work closely with mechanical, electrical, firmware, and manufacturing to understand failure modes before they find users.

What You'll Do

• Own the reliability testing program for Skip's wearable devices -- design test plans, define pass/fail criteria, execute testing across EVT/DVT/PVT builds, and track results through to closure

• Develop and maintain FMEA (DFMEA/PFMEA) for mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical subsystems, translating failure mode analysis into actionable test coverage

• Design and run accelerated life testing (ALT), HALT, HASS, and environmental stress screening to uncover failure modes before they reach users

• Build and maintain test fixtures, rigs, and custom tooling for cyclic, fatigue, wear, and environmental testing of device subsystems

• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) for reliability failures and field returns -- dig into the physics of failure and drive corrective actions through to verification

• Define and track reliability metrics and KPIs across the product lifecycle; own the reliability sections of design review documentation