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Salary: USD 170,000 - 230,000 / annual
Skydio is the leading US autonomous drone company, serving defense, public safety, and enterprise customers. This Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer role is central to ensuring the safety and robustness of state-of-the-art autonomous flying systems that operate in complex, real-world environments.
You will own comprehensive test strategies and validation planning across the product lifecycle—from early prototyping through volume production. Working cross-functionally with product development, embedded software, quality, manufacturing, and suppliers, you'll define and execute test plans that enable rapid iteration while identifying failure modes early in complex electro-mechanical autonomous systems.
Key responsibilities include leading technical validation programs end-to-end with accountability for test strategy execution and system readiness; collaborating with electrical, mechanical, and software teams on failure analysis and root-cause investigation; contributing design-for-reliability inputs at design reviews to mitigate risks from prototype to customer shipment; and analyzing massive datasets from flight telemetry and customer analytics to identify problems proactively and develop prognostic maintenance protocols.
You bring 6+ years of hands-on experience developing and delivering highly reliable complex electro-mechanical systems, with deep expertise in PCBA test engineering and debug. Strong robotics testing background with mechanical intuition is essential. You understand the physics of failure and integration risks across critical subsystems—compute, sensors, electro-mechanical components. Proficiency in Python and/or SQL for dataset analysis and automated testing is required. You're passionate about communicating hardware reliability nuances to cross-functional teams and driving organizational priorities.
FAA Part 107 certification is strongly encouraged within the first 60 days and required for certain positions. This is a full-time, regular position offering competitive base salary ($170,000–$230,000 annually), stock options, comprehensive health insurance, paid time off, and 401(k) matching.
About Skydio
Defense / GovTech; Industrial — autonomous drones for defense, public safety, and enterprise.
