Fleet Reliability Engineer

Job Description
Position summary
GM Level: 6A
Proposed job-family alignment: Quality and Reliability Engineering
Primary work location: Milford Proving Ground
Travel: Approximately 10%
Career track: Individual contributor
General Motors is developing advanced driving-assistance and autonomous-vehicle capabilities that require safe, reliable, and scalable fleet operations. The Fleet Reliability Engineer will help keep the operational fleet mission-ready by combining vehicle-level troubleshooting, reliability analysis, maintenance and readiness support, and disciplined follow-through on corrective actions.
This role is part of the AV Operations organization and works closely with Fleet Management, Service Operations, Troubleforce, Vehicle Integration, AV software and hardware teams, safety partners, and vehicle operators. The engineer will translate recurring fleet issues into clear technical investigations, practical mitigations, durable corrective actions, and measurable improvements in uptime, utilization, and operational readiness.
The successful candidate is comfortable moving between the vehicle, the maintenance/work-order system, operational dashboards, and cross-functional engineering discussions. They can work independently on significant problems within a defined area, exercise sound judgment in a fast-moving environment, and clearly communicate technical findings to both hands-on teams and engineering leadership.
What you’ll do
Monitor fleet health, availability, downtime, readiness, and recurring failure trends for AV test and data-collection vehicles, with primary support for operations at Milford Proving Ground and coordination with other fleet locations as needed.
Investigate vehicle and fleet issues spanning host-vehicle systems, autonomous-vehicle hardware, sensors, compute and instrumentation, connectivity, localization, calibration readiness, charging, and software-stack or system-health conditions.
Lead structured troubleshooting and root-cause investigations from initial issue identification through containment, corrective action, validation, documentation, and closure.
Partner with Service Operations and technicians to prioritize work orders, remove technical blockers, improve repair quality, and reduce time to return vehicles to service.
Provide timely technical support for operational escalations and fleet-downing events; help distinguish safe temporary mitigations from issues requiring engineering ownership or vehicle removal from service.
Analyze work-order, telemetry, incident, and operational data to identify reliability hotspots, Pareto trends, repeat failures, maintenance gaps, and opportunities to improve fleet utilization.
Develop and maintain reliability reports, issue summaries, failure-mode tracking, readiness views, and recommendations for operations and engineering leadership.
Establish clear problem statements, impact assessments, failure timelines, and evidence packages that enable partner engineering teams to diagnose and resolve issues efficiently.
Translate recurring operational issues into actionable engineering work, including defect reports, corrective-action plans, test requests, retrofit recommendations, parts needs, and follow-up validation.
Support fleet changes, hardware and firmware updates, retrofits, configuration changes, and vehicle-readiness activities through controlled, traceable, and auditable processes.
Participate in design reviews, vehicle build and integration feedback loops, release-readiness discussions, and operational change-control activities where fleet reliability or serviceability may be affected.
Collaborate with AV Operations and AV Test Engineering to ensure vehicles, systems, tools, procedures, and support coverage are ready for closed-course, public-road, and data-collection activities.
Create and improve standard work, troubleshooting guides, escalation paths, maintenance practices, and handoff documentation that can be used consistently across shifts and locations.
Contribute to reliability metrics and operating mechanisms, including fleet uptime, vehicle availability, downtime by cause, return-to-service performance, repeat repairs, issue response time, and deployment readiness.
Share lessons learned and coach technicians, operators, and partner engineers on recurring issues, safe work practices, diagnostic approaches, and reliability improvements.
Maintain a strong Safety First mindset and stop, escalate, or contain work when vehicle condition, system behavior, facility conditions, or operational context creates unacceptable risk.
Support other AV Operations priorities and special projects as business needs evolve.
Required qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, electrical, automotive, systems, industrial, computer engineering, or a related technical discipline.
At least 2 years of relevant experience in automotive, autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, consumer electronics, industrial equipment, or a related technical operations environment.
Experience troubleshooting complex electro-mechanical, software-enabled, or vehicle systems using a structured problem-solving approach.
Experience performing root-cause analysis and developing corrective or preventive actions that improve reliability, quality, or operational performance.
Ability to interpret technical information, work-order history, diagnostic data, logs, measurements, and operational metrics to form and test hypotheses.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple issues and priorities while maintaining ownership, documentation quality, and follow-through.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical issues clearly to technicians, operators, engineers, and leadership.
Ability to work effectively in a hands-on operational environment that may include vehicle yards, maintenance areas, test facilities, and changing priorities.
Ability to work on-site at Milford Proving Ground and travel approximately 10% to support fleet operations, partner locations, or engineering activities.
Ability to meet applicable GM, facility, safety, and vehicle-operation requirements for assigned work, including maintaining a valid driver’s license where required.
Preferred qualifications
Experience supporting autonomous vehicles, advanced driver-assistance systems, robotics fleets, or other safety-critical vehicle or mobile systems.
Working knowledge of SDV 2.0 concepts, software-defined vehicle architecture, vehicle compute, electronic control units, over-the-air updates, vehicle configuration, or software and hardware change management.
Experience with host-vehicle systems, automotive diagnostics, vehicle networks, sensors, calibration, localization, compute, connectivity, or autonomous-driving system integration.
Experience working with fleet-management, maintenance, incident-management, or reliability systems and dashboards.
Familiarity with issue-tracking and collaboration tools such as Jira, Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Office, or comparable platforms.
Experience using work-order and fleet-health data to create Pareto analyses, trend reports, operational dashboards, or reliability scorecards.
Familiarity with reliability methods such as FMEA, fault-tree analysis, 8D, FRACAS, statistical process control, or similar structured approaches.
Experience with SQL, Python, spreadsheets, command-line tools, telemetry analysis, or other methods for automating analysis and improving operational visibility.
Experience supporting hardware retrofits, fleet campaigns, validation drives, closed-course testing, public-road testing, or return-to-service decisions.
Experience working with external service providers, parts suppliers, repair facilities, or distributed operational teams.
Success in this role
Within the first year, the Fleet Reliability Engineer will be expected to:
Build trusted working relationships with AV Operations, Fleet Management, Service Operations, Troubleforce, Vehicle Integration, and partner engineering teams.
Establish a repeatable approach for monitoring fleet health, prioritizing reliability issues, documenting investigations, and tracking corrective actions to closure.
Improve visibility into the causes and duration of vehicle downtime and provide recommendations that help increase fleet uptime and usable vehicle hours.
Reduce repeat issues by converting operational learning into better diagnostics, maintenance practices, parts planning, standard work, and engineering fixes.
Help create a reliable feedback loop from vehicles and frontline operations into engineering decisions, release readiness, fleet changes, and future AV programs.
GM behaviors
Own the outcome and follow issues through to durable resolution.
Speak fearlessly and constructively when fleet reliability, safety, quality, or timing is at risk.
Commit to customers by understanding the needs of the operators, engineers, and programs that depend on the fleet.
Innovate responsibly by improving tools, processes, and methods without compromising safety or traceability.
Compensation: The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washi