Reliability Test Engineer
Mainspring Energy
Quality Assurance
Menlo Park, CA, USA
Company Overview
Mainspring Energy is revolutionizing power generation with the world’s most flexible and adaptable local power generation technology, the Mainspring Linear Generator. Commercial, industrial, and utility leaders are choosing Mainspring over traditional options like engines, turbines, and fuel cells to quickly and reliably deliver local power for EV charging, commercial facilities, data centers, and grid-scale operations.
The Mainspring Linear Generator is fuel flexible, ramps up and down to meet demand, and utilizes a flameless reaction with near-zero NOx emissions. Backed by top-tier investors including Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, American Electric Power, Lightrock, and General Catalyst Mainspring designs, manufactures and delivers its products to customers across the U.S. today, and we’re quickly scaling for international expansion.
Inspired by our vision of the affordable, reliable, net-zero carbon grid, Mainspring is rapidly expanding within the $816B global electricity equipment market, and we’re hiring the best talent to meet growing customer demand around the globe. We welcome a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and talents to bring fresh perspectives and ongoing innovation to our customers.
We are looking to build relationships with people who share our values:
Pragmatic Optimism. Building a new category of world-class power generation requires the optimism of ambition and creativity, balanced with practicality to solve problems efficiently. The challenges that arise are opportunities for growth.
Excellence without Ego. We bring expertise and commitment to creating the best customer experience, from sales to deployment and service, just as we apply deep technical rigor to building and delivering world-class products. We strive for excellence and behave as leaders with the humility to acknowledge our challenges, both collectively and as individual contributors.
Proactive Collaboration. The integration and cross-disciplinary nature of Mainspring’s business requires intentionally seeking out others who bring different skills, perspectives, and priorities. Our culture of inclusion and respect extends beyond our team to interactions with our partners and customers.
More information can be found at www.mainspringenergy.com
Job Overview
The Linear Generator is a sophisticated, automated, and integrated system spanning a wide range of engineering disciplines including thermodynamics, mechanical, electrical, software, and controls. This position will lead the operation and execution of experiments on our Linear Generators as part of Mainspring’s test engineering team. This includes hands-on work and remote operation of our Linear Generator qualification units, debugging, and data analysis aimed at qualifying new changes and reliability of our product. This position will require travel up to 30% time to our testing site in Houston, Texas.
We are looking for an open-minded, curious, and highly motivated Test Engineer to join our dynamic test engineering team. You will lead critical sub-system and system-level validation and reliability tests on new releases of our product. This role will require strong collaboration across the entire engineering and business organization.
Responsibilities
Operate our Linear Generator units
Perform hands-on troubleshooting working in close collaboration with other engineering disciplines such as Mechanical, Electrical and Software & Controls.
Work directly with technicians to coordinate repairs and retrofits
Review test plans and provide expert guidance on test setup and execution plan
Setup and maintain instrumentation to collect critical data
Manage test priorities on a daily basis to meet higher level deadlines with a focus on throughput and maintaining high uptime
Analyze data, generate reports and communicate results with engineering teams to facilitate learnings and design releases
Develop & improve processes and infrastructure to support testing on our next generation products
Interface with external stakeholders at our testing site in Houston, Texas to coordinate service and resolve other issues impacting testing at the site
Qualifications
Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, or equivalent with 3+ years of applicable experience
Proven experience of conducting experimental hardware projects in industrial environment in the context of product qualification or reliability testing
Strong organizational and communication skills
Demonstrated proficiency in complex project management in context of product development
Proficiency in programming with Python/ MatLab/ C++ (at least one)
Advanced data analysis
Proficiency with root cause analysis methods
Proficiency with safety protocols / LOTO procedures for high voltage equipment (and other safety critical systems)
Proficiency with programming DAQ devices / working with a wide variety of instrumentation/sensors
Experience communicating with customers/external stakeholders is a plus
Does your experience not meet all of our posted requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to positions unless they meet every listed requirement. At Mainspring, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive, flexible, and collaborative environment, so if you want to help us transition the world to clean and affordable electricity, and don’t meet all posted requirements for a particular role, we’d still love to hear from you. Mainspring can sometimes be flexible enough to shift responsibilities for the right person, or otherwise identify open or upcoming roles that may better fit your professional background.
In more traditional words, Mainspring Energy, Inc is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.
This compensation and benefits information is based on Mainspring Energy's estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future. We generally do not negotiate on salary once we have made an offer. The level of pay within the range will depend on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant prior experience and/or education, or particular skills and expertise. New hires joining the company tend to be paid within the starting base pay range noted above, with opportunities to increase pay over time based on development of additional skills, competencies, and company-specific knowledge.
108000 - 123600 USD a year
This position is onsite at our Menlo Park HQ but may require travel up to 30% for onsite testing in Houston, Tx. The salary will be adjusted to reflect local market conditions based on employee location as well as the experience of the employee. Along with the base salary, Mainspring offers pre-IPO stock options + benefits.