Staff Electrical Systems – Sustaining Engineer

Mainspring Energy

Senior Electrical Systems & Sustaining Engineer role at Mainspring developing fuel-flexible, low-emissions local power solutions. Anchoring a new sub-team in the Electrical Engineering department.

Posted 6/19/2026full-timeMenlo Park • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $157,250 - $185,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

CAPA Leadership & Escalation Ownership: Serve as the single point of contact for all EE Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) issues. Take charge of investigating fleet issues, establishing immediate containment paths, and driving permanent resolutions
Hands-on Lab Diagnostic Validation: Conduct intensive hands-on electrical lab bench testing to reproduce fleet and manufacturing anomalies. Utilize standard laboratory diagnostic equipment (oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, power supplies, logic analyzers, and electronic loads) to validate containment strategies and prove out root-cause theories
Root Cause & Failure Analysis: Lead end-to-end problem resolution spanning from initial telemetry data parsing to deep-dive root cause analysis. Partner closely with our internal Failure Analysis (FA) experts to diagnose complex electronics and hardware system failures
Design Ownership for Reliability: Directly drive the continuous improvement of our deployed hardware ecosystem. You will have the technical authority to own and execute the engineering change lifecycle—from designing and releasing targeted PCBA revisions to identifying, testing, and qualifying strategic off-the-shelf (OTS) components—to permanently eliminate failure modes and improve system performance
Cross-Functional Tiger Team Representative: Act as the authoritative EE voice on the cross-functional CAPA Tiger Team. Interface daily with Core Reliability, Mechanical, Software, and Manufacturing teams to ensure a unified approach to system-level reliability
Technical Triage & Strategy: Function as the primary gatekeeper for incoming electrical engineering challenges. For specialized issues, triage, prioritize, and collaboratively map out resolution strategies with design specialists across the EE department
Metrics & Infrastructure Management: Own and optimize the EE Atlassian/Jira Problem dashboard. Systematically track, analyze, and report on key performance indicators (e.g., Mean-Time-Between-Swaps/MTBSwap) to demonstrably reduce field failure rates and eBox replacements
Technical Knowledge Capture & Standards: Author comprehensive failure analysis reports, root-cause whitepapers, and standardized electrical triage workflows. You will turn deep-dive technical findings into institutional knowledge, creating the foundational documentation required to scale this sub-team and uplevel the broader engineering organization

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years of experience with a Bachelor's degree, **or** 4+ years of experience with a Master's degree, **in Electrical Engineering or a related field. This background must be in an **Electrical, Product, or Reliability Engineering capacity **with a clear track record of owning complex circuit/schematic analysis, physics-based root-cause investigations, and the full engineering change (EC) design lifecycle
Technical Acumen: Strong foundational expertise in complex electronics and hardware systems (preference for broad mechatronics/electronics experience over purely facility power systems)
Hands-on Lab Experience: Proven competency in a physical hardware lab environment setting up test benches, instrumenting hardware under test, and maintaining clean, safe laboratory testing practices
Problem-Solving DNA: A genuine passion for hardware debugging and structured root-cause failure analysis (e.g., 8D, 5 Why, Fishbone diagrams) on complex physical systems. You are not satisfied with the first layer of failure and have a tenacity towards finding the true root cause
Design Ownership for Reliability: Directly drive the continuous improvement of our deployed hardware ecosystem. You will have the technical authority to own and execute the engineering change lifecycle—from designing and releasing targeted PCBA revisions to identifying, testing, and qualifying strategic off-the-shelf (OTS) components—to permanently eliminate failure modes and elevate system robustness
Systems-Level Perspective: The ability to zoom out and understand complex interdependencies across circuitry, firmware, manufacturing and mechanical wear mechanisms within a massive multi-domain machine
Cultural Alignment: Embody Mainspring's foundational pillars on a daily basis: bring *Pragmatic Optimism* to highly complex engineering challenges, exercise *Excellence without Ego* when collecting or delivering rigorous technical feedback, and drive *Proactive Collaboration* across separate team boundaries

Benefits

Comp & perks

pre-IPO stock options
benefits

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA)root cause analysiscircuit analysisengineering change lifecyclehardware debuggingfailure analysismechatronicstest bench setupelectrical lab testingperformance metrics

Soft Skills

problem-solvingcollaborationcommunicationleadershiptenacityoptimismexcellenceadaptabilitycritical thinkingattention to detail