Hardware Reliability Engineer

About Tutor

We believe robots are the biggest lever we have to making the physical world a better, more affordable place. But robots are a rounding error in our society: nearly nine out of ten American factories and warehouses don’t even have a single robot, and robots have yet to make their way into our homes or places of business.

Tutor Intelligence is changing that.

Tutor is a robotics research and deployment company, building generally capable robot hardware and artificial intelligence to enable robots to go where no robots have gone before. Our robots range from a semi-humanoid with frontier dexterity approaching the human form to workhorses that do back-breaking work, moving boxes, pallets, and bulk goods for businesses from family-owned manufacturers to some of the largest brands in the world. Tutor robots are manufactured at scale and operate as a network, combining the whole fleet’s learned experience to train ever more capable robot artificial intelligence.

Founded at MIT and headquartered in Watertown, MA, our team is full stack: we design and manufacture robot hardware, train our own models, work directly with the smallest and largest end-customers, and maintain our fleet across the United States. We’re a team of researchers, engineers, technicians, operators, and sellers who love building things and solving hard problems.

Our mission is grand: robots everywhere, for the common good, raising the standard of living across North America, and then the world.

The Role

As our fleet grows, we need to know how long every part of our robots will last, and why the ones that fail early do. You'll be our first reliability engineer. You'll set reliability targets for the robot, measure them against real fleet and factory data, run the life testing that tells us where we stand, and personally tear down failed hardware to prove the root cause.

You report to the Head of Manufacturing and have the authority to hold any robot that isn't ready to ship.

Why This Role Matters

Every robot we ship goes to work at a customer's site. A failure there costs us far more than one caught on our floor. We need a reliability engineer who can predict failures before they happen, prove the root cause when they do, and turn that data into design and supplier changes that make our robots last longer.

What You'll Do

• Reliability targets: Set and own MTBF and failure-rate targets for the robot and its critical subsystems: arms, gearboxes, motors and drives, batteries and power systems, and control electronics. Track performance against them using fleet and factory data.
• Reliability analysis: Analyze life and failure data (Weibull, reliability growth, failure-mode Pareto) to predict field performance and prioritize what to fix first.
• Life and stress testing: Design and run accelerated life and stress tests (ALT, HALT) on critical components and new designs. Qualify new, refurbished and changed parts before they go on a robot.
• Design for reliability: Work with Hardware Engineering on DFMEA and design reviews, and drive design changes backed by your data.
• Failure analysis: Do hands-on failure analysis on returned and failed hardware. Tear it down, bench-test it, make the root-cause call and prove the fix works.
• FRACAS: Build and own our failure reporting and corrective action system: failures by part, supplier and serial number, repeat failures and escapes. Run the weekly material review and drive corrective actions to closure.
• Suppliers: Be the technical lead with suppliers on reliability and returns. Send them failure data, push for root cause and corrective action, and hold them to reliability requirements.
• Tools: Use AI tools to build the trackers, dashboards and automated checks that keep Engineering, Manufacturing, Deployment and Customer Success working from facts.

What Success Looks Like

• 90 days: Reliability targets are set for our top critical subsystems. A FRACAS is live and every failure has an owner, status and root cause path. A life test plan is running on the highest-risk components. MRB runs weekly on data.
• 1 year: Fleet MTBF is measured and trending up against targets. Top failure modes are down measurably and fixed in design or at the supplier, not worked around. New and changed parts are qualified before they ship. Leadership gets reliability answers from your data, not from meetings.

Required

• Bachelor's in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Robotics or Computer Engineering.
• 4+ years as a reliability engineer on electromechanical products (robotics, automation, automotive, aerospace, medical devices or similar).
• Hands-on reliability analysis: Weibull or life data analysis, MTBF/failure-rate modeling and reliability growth.
• You've designed and run accelerated life or stress testing (ALT, HALT/HASS) and used the results to change a design or a supplier.
• You've personally torn down failed hardware and driven it to a verified root cause, not by changing code or filing paperwork.
• Experience with DFMEA and FRACAS.
• You've worked directly with suppliers on reliability, returns or corrective action.
• You use AI tools (Claude or similar) every day and can show us a tool you built that other people used.
• Able to travel up to 25%.

Preferred

• ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE).
• Reliability experience on servo motors, gearboxes, battery packs or power electronics.
• Robotics, industrial automation or hardware startup experience.
• Reliability tools such as ReliaSoft, Minitab or JMP, or Python for life data analysis.
• Experience with MES or serial-number traceability systems.

Why Join

You'll build the reliability function from scratch at a company putting robots to work at scale. Your targets, tests and findings will directly shape how our robots are designed, built and supported.

How We Work: Our Values in This Role

We hire against our values, and we'll interview you against them too. Here's what they look like in this seat:

• Love of the Game. A teardown that proves a root cause is satisfying to you, and you want the data to be airtight.
• Gumption. You don't wait for a failure to be assigned. You spot the trend, open the investigation and chase the supplier until it's closed.
• Beginner's Mindset. You question every "known issue" and every test we've always run. If the data says we're wrong, we change.
• Belief in Each Other. You hold engineers, techs and suppliers to a high bar, and you share the facts even when they're uncomfortable.
• Keep Moving Forward. You contain fast, ship what's good and keep digging on what isn't. Perfect analysis never stalls the line.
• Customer Obsession. A defect that escapes is a robot down at a customer site. You hold the line so they don't have to.

Why Tutor?

Whether you’re designing robots, closing deals, running deployments, or creating the processes that help us scale, your work doesn’t sit on a shelf. It shows up on real production floors, making physical work safer and more affordable.

Our team is driven by curiosity and a genuine love of building. Everyone here takes real ownership, learns fast, and holds a high bar while having each other’s backs. If you love hard problems and creating things that didn’t exist before, you’ll fit right in.

Benefits

We take care of our team so they can do their best work. At Tutor, you’ll get:

• Fully employer-covered health insurance, so you’re protected without the premium.
• A managed 401(k) to help you plan for the future.
• Generous time off: unlimited PTO and all federal holidays off for full-time salaried employees, and 16+ days of accrued paid time off plus 1.5x pay on federal holidays for hourly employees.
• Regular in-office meals and team social events throughout the year.

As Tutor grows, so will our benefits. We’re continuing to invest in ways to support our team at work and beyond.

Tutor Intelligence is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds.

Final compensation within this range depends on experience, skills and the level determined through the interview process. This role is onsite in Watertown, MA, with up to 25% travel.