What are the responsibilities and job description for the Sr. Vehicle Build Technician II position at Rivian?
The RIV-4 VQAF Technician supports vehicle quality, fleet readiness, and execution across assigned vehicles, programs, and subsystem workstreams. This role is responsible for organizing and performing day-to-day technician activities with a strong build-in-quality mindset, identifying quality concerns early, driving follow-through, and partnering closely with engineering, operations, and quality stakeholders to deliver high-quality outcomes. At the RIV-4 level, the technician is expected to work with growing autonomy, manage assignments with multiple inputs and deliverables, communicate clearly across teams, and contribute practical improvements to processes, documentation, and execution standards.
- Develop and execute strategies with the team to exceed goals within an assigned area of responsibility, such as a specific fleet, vehicle group, support program, or subsystem, while contributing to broader cross-functional goals and readiness needs.
- Ability when needed to Independently execute and continuously improve deliverables, technician workflows, inspection methods, documentation, and handoffs within the VQAF function.
- Own complex and sometimes ambiguous assignments end-to-end with team support across multiple vehicles, stakeholders, or locations, taking initiative to unblock issues and move work forward without waiting for perfect definition.
- Ability to act independently to define methods, test approaches, work sequencing, and execution plans for new or changing assignments, while escalating risk early and bringing forward practical recommendations.
- Serve as a day-to-day technical lead or facilitator when needed, coordinating work across technicians and partner teams including engineering, events, communications,
- studio, operations, and program stakeholders to deliver work on time and to a high standard.
- Support VQAF activities such as fleet maintenance, special-project support, vehicle recovery, specialty wheel support, wrap and detail coordination, vehicle buy-offs and walkthroughs, and showcase/event preparation.
- Maintain clear communication on priorities, dependencies, timing, and tradeoffs; provide timely feedback when priorities shift and explain the impact to project scope, timing, or team capacity.
- Organize and manage active projects, balancing competing assignments while maintaining quality, urgency, and professionalism under changing business needs.
- Lead or support issue triage, containment, and follow-up by clearly documenting defects, failure modes, risks, recommended next steps, and execution status.
- Create and maintain accurate documentation, shift notes, process flows, reports, work instructions, and status updates needed to keep work visible and repeatable across the team.
- Identify recurring friction points and propose improved procedures, standards, templates, tooling, or coordination methods that raise team performance over time.
- Build strong working relationships with technicians, group leaders, engineers, and partner teams by being reliable, solution-oriented, and clear in both written and verbal communication.
- High school diploma or GED preferred, with relevant experience in manufacturing, assembly, quality processes, automotive repair, prototype support, or mechanical technician work.
- Moderate to high ability to troubleshoot vehicle concerns, including electrical and non-electrical issues, and to execute repairs, inspections, validation checks, and rework support with attention to detail.
- Experience using common inspection, audit, and measurement tools such as torque tools, calipers, gauges, OBD tools, or comparable shop and validation equipment.
- Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple priorities, shifting schedules, and competing requests in a fast-paced environment.
- Working knowledge of issue tracking, documentation, and data systems, with the ability to follow agreed concern-management processes and maintain clean, useful records.
- Ability to communicate clearly across technicians, engineers, and partner teams, including leading meetings, documenting actions, and aligning on next steps.
- Demonstrated build-in-quality mindset, including raising concerns early, supporting prevention, and contributing to continuous improvement instead of only reacting to problems.
- Ability to work safely in shop, garage, test, and production-adjacent environments, including standing, lifting, climbing, and working around moderate noise, dust, and varying temperatures as needed.
- Owns complex work with a high degree of initiative and follow-through.
- Gives well-reasoned recommendations, not just status updates.
- Helps define how work should be done when the path is unclear.
- Can coordinate multiple people and moving parts without losing detail.
- Improves team effectiveness through stronger process, documentation, and communication.
- Provides clear feedback when shifting priorities creates risk to timing, quality, or capacity.