What Is a Reliability Engineer and How to Become One

By ZipRecruiter Marketplace Research Team

As a reliability engineer, your duties are to test and evaluate the manufacturing of products and components and ensure that the procedures are efficient and do not lead to abnormally high maintenance or operational costs. Your other responsibilities are to find solutions to product reliability risks. You may manage risk in a supply chain, develop loss prevention strategies, and track the entire lifecycle of product development, from building prototypes to moving a product into full-scale production. You analyze information from department heads and recommend strategies to reduce risk and ensure that the product works reliably.

To become a reliability engineer, you need to have several qualifications, including a bachelor’s degree and work experience. Common majors for reliability engineers include engineering, logistics, statistics, and math. You should also have a good command of spreadsheet and logistics programs and some advanced statistical analysis skills. Good written communication skills are important as well. Entry-level reliability engineers may start in an internship to get additional training about company products, policies, and test procedures.

Job Summary

Our company is looking for a Reliability Engineer to help us oversee certain aspects of our operations. In this role, you will perform preventative and predictive maintenance on our tools and equipment. We consider these value-added tasks because they help keep our production costs down by preventing interruptions. You will also conduct a variety of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and root cause analysis tasks, identifying potential risks to our operations and developing corrective actions. In this role, you will contribute to our continual improvement process and help strengthen the overall viability of our company. Applicants should have a bachelor's or master's degree in mechanical engineering.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Ensure the reliability of equipment and processes
• Perform preventative and predictive maintenance
• Conduct a variety of failure analyses, including root cause, Weibull, and fault tree analysis
• Identify risks to business operations and develop corrective actions
• Contribute to the continual improvement process

Requirements and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical or electrical engineering; master's degree preferred
• Professional experience in manufacturing/production and reliability
• Data analytics skills
• Mechanical and electrical aptitude
• Familiarity with Six Sigma methodology
• Analytical skills