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Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer

Join Skydio as a Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer to enhance safety and reliability for autonomous flying machines.

Location
San Mateo, California, United States
Compensation
$170k–$230k/yr
Level
senior
Type
full time

Posted by employer 3 weeks ago

First seen on Joblaze 1 month ago

Last verified on the company career page 1 day ago

Apply at Skydio → Save job Scanned from skydio.com

Skills & Technologies

SQL Python Flexible on stack

AI in the day-to-day

Proficient in Python and/or SQL and how to best harness AI models to maximize efficiency and minimize hallucinations analyzing large datasets.

Requirements

Experience
6+ years

Not disclosed in this posting: work arrangement, visa sponsorship.

Benefits

401k Match Paid Vacation Holiday Pay Equity/Stock Options Sick Leave Health Insurance Relocation Assistance

Joblaze summary

The Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer at Skydio plays a crucial role in developing and executing test strategies for complex autonomous systems, ensuring their safety and reliability throughout the product lifecycle. This position requires extensive experience in testing and validating electro-mechanical systems, with a strong emphasis on robotics and failure analysis. Ideal candidates will have a background in engineering, with a deep understanding of hardware reliability and proficiency in data analysis tools like Python and SQL. Skydio fosters a collaborative environment, encouraging cross-functional teamwork to enhance product performance.

Joblaze insights

  • Listed about a month ago — first seen on Joblaze September 3, 2026. Last confirmed on Skydio's careers page October 31, 2026.
  • Salary band is above the typical range for comparable tech roles (median ~$128,600).
  • Starts above 71% of 283 comparable senior other roles in United States that list Python we track (median $150,000 across 60 companies). See Python salary trends
  • Python appears in 16.4% of 2597 comparable senior other roles in United States; SQL appears in 6.2% of 2597 comparable senior other roles in United States.

Quick facts

What's the salary range?
Skydio lists $170,000–$230,000 for this role.
How much experience is required?
At least 6 years of relevant experience for this Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer role.
What's the tech stack?
Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Python, SQL.
What seniority level is this role?
Skydio targets senior candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?
Full-time for this Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer role at Skydio.

From the original posting

About the role:

Autonomous systems bring together electronics hardware, sensing, and real-time AI software. The complexity of the systems combined with the fact they can move freely in the real world, makes the development, performance, and reliability testing strategy a key element of delivering a great product.

We are seeking a driven and versatile Senior Hardware Test and Reliability Engineer to help drive safety and reliability initiatives, develop and execute test plans that enable rapid design iteration and robust product validation for state-of-the-art autonomous flying machines servicing a broad range of enterprise, public safety, and defense applications.

How you'll make an impact:

  • Work with product development, embedded software, quality, manufacturing, and suppliers to define and execute comprehensive test strategies from early prototyping stages through volume production, enabling earliest possible discovery of failure modes for complex electro-mechanical autonomous systems

  • Lead technical test strategy and own validation planning, execution and risk management from early prototypes through volume production

  • Collaborate with electrical, mechanical and software engineering teams to perform failure analysis, identify root cause, implement corrective actions, resolve system issues, and help develop process/design mitigations

  • Contribute to design reviews and provide key design for reliability inputs to mitigate risks from first prototypes to first customer shipment and beyond

  • A keen interest in contributing across multiple domains to make Skydio products the default choice for users in challenging environments

  • Immerse yourself in massive data sets from developmental flight telemetry and robust customer analytics to identify problems before they occur, perform risk assessments, develop prognostic and conditioned based maintenance protocols, and anchor our reliability test specs firmly in data

What makes you a good fit:

  • Deep curiosity with 6+ years experience hands-on testing, development and delivery of highly reliable complex electro-mechanical systems with an emphasis on high density PCBA test engineering and debug

  • Proven experience leading technical validation programs end-to-end, with accountability for test strategy, execution quality, and overall system readiness

  • Strong robotics testing experience coupled with good mechanical intuition desired to rapidly drive failure analysis

  • Extensive knowledge of the physics of failure and integration risks of one or more critical electronics and mechanical subsystems such as compute systems, electro-mechanical or electronic sensors

  • Proficient in Python and/or SQL and how to best harness AI models to maximize efficiency and minimize hallucinations analyzing large datasets or scripting efficient automated testing; uncovering correlations and trends between our drones, their operational environments, and diverse use cases

  • A passion for communicating the nuances of hardware reliability to internal and external cross functional teams to help drive organizational priorities

  • Obtaining FAA Part 107 certification within the first 60 days of employment is strongly encouraged for all Skydio employees and required for certain positions

Compensation: At Skydio, our compensation packages for regular, full-time employees include competitive base salaries, equity in the form of stock options, and comprehensive benefits packages. Compensation will vary based on factors, including skill level, proficiencies, transferable knowledge, and experience. Relocation assistance may also be provided for eligible roles. The annual base salary range for this position is $170,000 - $230,000*. Fundamentally, we believe that equity is the key to long-term financial growth, and we ensure all regular, full-time employees have the opportunity to significantly benefit from the company's success. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to enroll in the Company’s group health insurance plans. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to receive the following benefits: Paid vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and 401K savings plan. This position and all associated benefits are subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws, as well as the Company’s policies and eligibility criteria.

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Standard company text repeated across Skydio's postings is omitted here.

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