Director, Hardware Reliability
$251k - $295k USD
Our mission at Oura is to empower every person to own their inner potential. Our award-winning products help our global community gain a deeper knowledge of their readiness, activity, and sleep quality by using their Oura Ring and its connected app. We've helped millions of people understand and improve their health by providing daily insights and practical steps to inspire healthy lifestyles.
Empowering the world starts with living our values and empowering our team. As a quickly growing company focused on helping people live healthier and happier lives, we ensure that our team members have what they need to do their best work — both in and out of the office.
We’re looking for a hands-on Hardware Reliability Director to lead the strategy and execution of our hardware reliability and validation programs. In this role, you’ll ensure that every Oura product meets the highest standards of quality, durability, and performance. You’ll drive reliability initiatives from concept through mass production, collaborating closely with testing,design, firmware, quality, and manufacturing teams to deliver products that stand up to real-world use. As both a technical and people leader, you’ll mentor a talented team of reliability engineers while staying actively involved in testing, data analysis, and problem-solving that directly shape the Oura Ring experience.
This is an on-site position based in San Diego or San Francisco, CA.
Key Responsibilities:
Reliability Strategy & Technical Leadership
- Define and own the hardware reliability strategy, ensuring it supports Oura’s product roadmap, design principles, and business objectives.
- Drive the evolution of reliability and validation methodologies across mechanical, electrical, and environmental domains to ensure long-term product durability and customer satisfaction.
- Establish standardized reliability metrics and KPIs to measure and continuously improve product robustness, test coverage, and overall quality.
- Lead strategic initiatives that elevate design-for-reliability practices and influence upstream design and manufacturing decisions.
Organizational & Cross-Functional Leadership
- Lead and mentor a team of hardware reliability engineers. Providing technical guidance, performance feedback, and career development support.
- Build a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- Partner closely with product design, mechanical, electrical, firmware, and operations teams to ensure reliability is embedded throughout the development lifecycle.
- Identify and address skill gaps, ensuring the team's capabilities match evolving product needs
- Represent the hardware reliability function in cross-functional program reviews
Manufacturing & External Partner Integration
- Lead hardware reliability strategy integration with contract manufacturers (CMs), ensuring consistent quality during development and mass production.
- Establish reliability requirements, qualification plans, and test protocols for CMs to ensure consistent product performance at scale.
- Manage relationships with external labs and technology partners to augment in-house reliability capabilities and validate compliance with safety and regulatory standards.
Technical Execution & Issue Resolution
- Provide hands-on technical leadership in critical reliability investigations, from initial failure observation through detailed root cause analysis, validation, and corrective action..
- Lead personally root cause investigations and drive resolution of complex hardware issues leveraging deep technical knowledge across mechanical, electrical, and materials domains to guide effective problem-solving.
- Work closely with Electrical, Mechanical, firmware and test engineers and design teams in the lab and on-site at contract manufacturers to review data, inspect failure modes, and validate corrective actions in real time.
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Champion data-driven decision-making by integrating statistical methods, reliability modeling, and accelerated life testing into issue resolution processes.
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Drive the development and deployment of automated test systems, custom reliability fixtures, and instrumentation setups, contributing directly to technical design reviews and implementation.
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Lead or participate in hands-on failure analysis and teardown reviews for field returns and production incidents, ensuring lessons learned translate into improved design and process controls.
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Collaborate with quality, operations, and design teams to ensure issues are fully resolved, verified through testing, and captured in preventive reliability design guidelines.
Quality Systems, Process, and Resource Management
- Define and implement reliability processes, tools, and documentation standards to ensure traceability, consistency, and compliance.
- Oversee documentation quality and risk management frameworks to drive transparency and informed decision-making.
- Forecast future resourcing and capacity needs and advocate for hiring, contractor support, or investments in alignment with roadmap demands.
Qualifications:
Experience
- 10+ years in hardware reliability & validation within high-volume consumer electronics or wearable products, including 5+ years of leadership experience
- Proven track record of defining and executing reliability strategies that improved product quality and reduced field failures.
- Experience with contract manufacturer collaboration from NPI through mass production.
- Demonstrated success in leading cross-functional initiatives that improved product quality.
Skills & Knowledge
- Deep knowledge of reliability engineering principles, HW testing, mechanical % electrical durability, failure analysis, data management and component qualification.
- Familiarity with regulatory and safety compliance.
- Strong understanding of test automation platforms, lab instrumentation, and statistical analysis tools.
- Strategic thinker with strong project management, interpersonal, and communication skills.
- Excellent communication skills, capable of representing the reliability function.
Work Environment
- On-site preferred; hybrid options based on program phases.
- Travel to CM, Finland or lab sites as needed to support builds and validation.
- Collaboration with global hardware, firmware, test engineering, and manufacturing teams.
Benefits
At Oura, we care about you and your well-being. Everyone here at Oura has a ring of their own and we are continually looking to improve employee health and add to our benefits!
What we offer:
- Competitive salary and equity packages
- Health, dental, vision insurance, and mental health resources
- An Oura Ring of your own plus employee discounts for friends & family
- 20 days of paid time off plus 13 paid holidays plus 8 days of flexible wellness time off
- Paid sick leave and parental leave
- Amazing culture of collaborative and passionate coworkers
Oura takes a market-based approach to pay, which may vary depending on your location. US locations are categorized into tiers based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. While most offers will be closer to the starting range, successful candidates' pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, internal peer equity, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.
Region 1: $250,750 - $295,000
Region 2: $190,000 - $237,000
Oura is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Individuals seeking employment at Oura are considered without regard to age, ancestry, color, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, protected family care or medical leave status, race, religion (including beliefs and practices or the absence thereof), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. We will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.
We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.
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