Senior Reliability Engineer

What Impact You'll Have

Northstrat, a GRVTY company is seeking a Senior Reliability Engineer to own the reliability of our fielded and in-production radio-frequency (RF) electronic warfare (EW) systems. These systems are already designed; your focus is on qualification, production, sustainment, and fielded reliability — predicting, measuring, and continuously improving the reliability of EW transmitters, receivers, high-power amplifiers, wideband RF front-ends, T/R modules, and antenna assemblies operating in harsh military environments such as airborne pods, shipboard installations, and ground platforms. 

You will be the reliability technical lead for these EW systems, partnering with manufacturing, test, quality, systems engineering, and sustainment teams to keep products meeting their reliability requirements in production and in the field. Your analyses will directly inform production decisions, qualification outcomes, sustainment costs, and program performance against contractual reliability (RAM) requirements. 

This is a hybrid role based out of our Sterling, VA facility, with regular on-site presence expected for lab, integration, and program activities. 

What You'll be Owning

• Serve as the reliability technical lead for fielded and in-production EW RF systems, maintaining reliability requirements, allocations, and verification artifacts tied to mission and operational profiles and contractual (RAM) requirements.
• Perform reliability predictions and modeling (MTBF/MTTF, reliability block diagrams, fault trees) for EW RF hardware — high-power PAs, LNAs, mixers, filters, synthesizers, wideband front-ends, DRFM/receiver assemblies, and antenna/array hardware — using MIL-HDBK-217 and related methods.
• Lead FMEA/FMECA on existing EW designs and translate findings into production-process, screening, and sustainment improvements.
• Plan and analyze qualification and ongoing reliability testing per MIL-STD-810 and program specs: HALT/HASS, accelerated life testing, thermal cycling, vibration/shock, humidity, and altitude, plus EW-relevant RF stress (sustained high-power operation, duty cycle, VSWR/mismatch, ESD).
• Conduct root-cause and failure analysis on RF and EW component and board-level failures, working with FA labs (cross-section, X-ray, decap, SEM/EDS, network analyzer characterization) and driving closed-loop corrective action (FRACAS).
• Apply derating and thermal management analysis to high-power EW RF components; review junction temperatures, power dissipation, and component stress against derating guidelines.
• Own component sustainment for RF and high-frequency parts: screening, EEE parts management, and obsolescence/DMSMS risk management for in-production and fielded systems.
• Own reliability data across the production and sustainment lifecycle — FRACAS, field-return and depot/sustainment data — and build reliability growth models (e.g., Crow-AMSAA) to drive continuous improvement.
• Support production and sustainment milestone activities (e.g., Production Readiness Reviews, Test Readiness Reviews) and author/review qualification, acceptance, and screening procedures.
• Mentor junior reliability engineers and help mature the organization's reliability processes and toolset. 

What You Must Have

• Must have an active Secret or higher clearance. 
• A bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, Reliability Engineering, Physics, or related field.
• Must have 8+ years of reliability engineering experience, including significant work on RF/microwave or wireless hardware.
• Experience supporting defense, aerospace, or other regulated/high-reliability hardware programs in production and/or sustainment.
• Working knowledge of RF fundamentals: S-parameters, impedance matching, link budgets, noise figure, gain/compression, and common RF components and measurements.
• Demonstrated expertise in reliability methods: FMEA/FMECA, RBD, fault tree analysis, Weibull and statistical life-data analysis, and reliability prediction standards (MIL-HDBK-217; familiarity with MIL-HDBK-338, Telcordia SR-332, or FIDES a plus).
• Experience planning and interpreting environmental and accelerated stress tests, including MIL-STD-810 environments and HALT/HASS.
• Strong failure-analysis and root-cause skills (8D, fishbone, 5-Whys) and experience operating a FRACAS.
• Strong data analysis skills (Excel and at least one of Python/R/MATLAB/Minitab/JMP). 

What Would be Nice to Have

• Master's degree in a relevant engineering discipline.
• ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE) certification.
• Direct experience with electronic warfare systems (ECM/ECCM, jammers, EW receivers, DRFM, wideband/high-power RF) and their failure and degradation modes.
• Experience with defense RAM requirements and standards such as GEIA-STD-0009, MIL-STD-785, and reliability allocations on DoD programs.
• Hands-on experience with RF test equipment (vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators) and interpreting RF degradation and failure modes.
• Familiarity with reliability challenges of high-power RF and harsh-platform (airborne pod, shipboard, ground vehicle) installations.