What are the responsibilities and job description for the Field Reliability Engineer position at Base Power Company?
About Base
Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time.
About The Role
We are seeking a Field Reliability Engineer to own the reliability picture for our deployed hardware fleet. This person monitors fleet health through data, decides when to pull or swap hardware in the field, triages returned units, and—critically—tracks what is failing at what rate so the team has accurate, well-informed Pareto charts to drive design and supplier decisions. The role covers both in-house designed hardware and supplier-made parts. It is highly learnable; strong fundamentals and problem-solving instincts matter more than years of experience.
What You’ll Do
The Hardware Reliability team ensures our equipment exceeds engineering and reliability standards through rigorous mechanical, electrical, and environmental testing at the component, sub-assembly, and system levels. When we find failure points, we leverage data-driven insights to identify root causes and provide actionable improvements and mitigations. We act as a tight feedback loop for the design team, accelerating product maturity and ensuring we deliver a stellar experience for our members.
Please note: Base is a startup, which means priorities shift and evolve quickly. Your role may expand or change based on the needs of the business at any given time, so the responsibilities listed may not be exhaustive.
Our Values
Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time.
About The Role
We are seeking a Field Reliability Engineer to own the reliability picture for our deployed hardware fleet. This person monitors fleet health through data, decides when to pull or swap hardware in the field, triages returned units, and—critically—tracks what is failing at what rate so the team has accurate, well-informed Pareto charts to drive design and supplier decisions. The role covers both in-house designed hardware and supplier-made parts. It is highly learnable; strong fundamentals and problem-solving instincts matter more than years of experience.
What You’ll Do
- Root Cause Analysis: Investigate field failures and manufacturing non-conformances to determine root cause. Travel locally as needed for deep dives. This is the crux of the job - strong physics fundamentals, common sense, and instinct required to be good at this.
- Fleet Health Monitoring: Build and read dashboards (Grafana, SQL/BigQuery, Python) to assess the health of the deployed hardware fleet and spot emerging reliability trends.
- Failure Rate Tracking: Track what is breaking and at what rate. Maintain accurate failure-rate data and produce well-informed Pareto charts that prioritize the team's reliability efforts.
- Field Decisions: Make the call on when to dispatch a field swap or pull hardware from the field for investigation, and drive that process to completion.
- RMA Triage: Receive and triage hardware returned from the field. Characterize the failure, determine what's wrong, and decide whether to escalate to a design engineer for full teardown.
- Failure Recreation: Develop tests and methods to recreate field failures in the lab.
- Corrective Action: Recommend design changes or corrective actions to address reliability issues. For supplier-made parts, drive, track, and report supplier performance on implementing those changes.
- Records: Maintain detailed records of failure analysis and reliability assessments.
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, or a related field.
- Strong electrical engineering fundamentals.
- Ability to build and read dashboards for fleet monitoring—working proficiency with tools such as Grafana, SQL/BigQuery, and Python.
- Experience with system-level testing, debugging, and troubleshooting of Battery Energy Storage Systems, power electronics, or complex electromechanical systems.
- Familiarity with failure analysis techniques and materials characterization methods.
- Proficient knowledge of electronics (PCBs, PCBAs, electronic components).
- Familiarity with reliability concepts—failure-rate tracking, MTBF/AFR, and the ability to build a Weibull plot (expertise not required).
- Hands-on, with excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
- Experience with field-deployed hardware and RMA processes.
- Experience driving supplier corrective actions and tracking supplier performance.
- Comfort working across both in-house designed and supplier-made hardware.
- Strong communication skills for reporting reliability findings to design, manufacturing, and supplier teams.
The Hardware Reliability team ensures our equipment exceeds engineering and reliability standards through rigorous mechanical, electrical, and environmental testing at the component, sub-assembly, and system levels. When we find failure points, we leverage data-driven insights to identify root causes and provide actionable improvements and mitigations. We act as a tight feedback loop for the design team, accelerating product maturity and ensuring we deliver a stellar experience for our members.
Please note: Base is a startup, which means priorities shift and evolve quickly. Your role may expand or change based on the needs of the business at any given time, so the responsibilities listed may not be exhaustive.
Our Values
- First Principles Thinking: Question assumptions. Principles > rules.
- Operate at Base Pace: Focus on what matters, act quickly, and learn by doing.
- Give & Get Feedback: Be direct, be humble, and maintain a growth mindset.
- Everyone’s an Owner: Follow through on commitments and own results.
- Strong Opinions, Loosely Held: Drive clarity and make calls with imperfect information.
- Committed to the Mission: Rebuilding the grid is a big challenge. We work hard because we care deeply about the impact we’re creating. We work in-person. It’s not a 9-to-5. We are all-in.
- Fun & Optimism Coexist with Grit: Collaboration and celebration coincide with the intensity of building real things.