Fleet Engineer

<p><strong>What we’re doing isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>Diligent builds helpful robots that work safely and autonomously in real world environments. We move quickly, solve messy problems, and care deeply about reliability at scale. As a Fleet Engineer, you'll own the reliability and continuous improvement of our deployed robotic fleet — leading hands-on investigations into how and why robots fail in the field, across the mobile base, charging/docking, motion and power, connectivity (modem), and sensor hardware. You'll combine remote data analysis with bench/lab failure analysis at our Austin HQ, turning field-technician reports and fleet data into clear problem statements, validated root causes, and corrective actions driven to closure with engineering, operations, manufacturing, and vendors.</p> <p>This role is based in Austin, TX. It will require 15-20% travel along with close collaboration across software, hardware, operations, and product engineering teams.</p> <p><strong>Key Responsibilities</strong></p> <ul> <li>Fleet Reliability &amp; Hands-On Debugging: Lead triage and bench/lab failure analysis across the mobile base, charging/docking, motion and power, connectivity, and sensor hardware —<br>getting hands-on with returned units to reproduce, instrument, and isolate the failure.</li> <li>Root Cause Analysis: Diagnose failures from component level (electrical, mechanical, firmware) to system level, applying standard methodologies (5-why, fishbone, fault-tree,&nbsp;FMEA, 8D).</li> <li>Data-Driven Investigation: Pull and analyze fleet data and logs to define problem statements, surface trends, and validate hypotheses quantitatively — accounting for confounding factors, base rates, and sample size.</li> <li>Field Synthesis &amp; On-Call: Turn field-technician reports into crisp problem statements; own escalated issues (on-call) to support the field team and minimize downtime.</li> <li>Corrective Action &amp; Cross-Functional: Drive short- and long-term fixes (hardware, software, operational, process) to closure with engineering, operations, and product — including&nbsp;supplier corrective actions and design feedback with vendors and manufacturing.&nbsp;</li> <li>Tooling &amp; Test Infrastructure: Build the fixtures, instrumentation, and bench test setups that accelerate debug workflows.</li> <li>Documentation &amp; Standards: Document debugging procedures and root-cause findings; contribute to fleet reliability standards.</li> <li>Growth: Raise the team's investigative rigor, work closely with technicians, and grow into mentoring over time.</li> </ul> <p><strong>What Success Looks Like</strong></p> <ul> <li>Improved FPY and reduced rework rates across production builds.</li> <li>Reduced per-unit cycle time for test/provisioning while increasing test coverage.</li> <li>Stable, fully automated provisioning flow with minimal manual intervention.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Basic Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>Hands-on electrical debugging — schematics, multimeter/oscilloscope, power, connector and harness fault isolation, basic instrumentation.</li> <li>Hands-on mechanical debugging — mechanisms, tolerances and fits, fixturing, dimensional/force measurement, mechanical drawings; able to pinpoint what is physically wrong with a unit.</li> <li>Hypothesis-driven, quantitative debugging — frame the problem, design discriminating tests, reason about confounding factors, base rates, and sample size, and update conclusions when the evidence contradicts them.</li> <li>System log analysis — read raw system/robot logs to reconstruct events and isolate failures (the backbone of most investigations).</li> <li>End-to-end versatility — comfortable across subsystems, running an investigation independently to conclusion.</li> <li>3+ years in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or complex electro-mechanical systems — or an adjacent field (medical devices, industrial automation, semiconductor and capital-equipment field service, automotive or aerospace Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul, EV charging). 5+ years / senior scope preferred.</li> <li>Bachelor's in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related engineering field (required); Master's a plus.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Preferred Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>Experience with robotics stacks (ROS or equivalent) and robotic sensor calibration/test.</li> <li>Experience with deployed robot or autonomous-vehicle fleets.</li> <li>Networking (Ethernet, CAN bus, time-sync) and firmware familiarity.</li> <li>Driving supplier corrective actions and design feedback with vendors and manufacturing.</li> <li>Hardware-in-the-loop test and validation-rig design.</li> <li>Compute platforms (NVIDIA Jetson/Orin, GPUs).</li> </ul>