Senior Field Quality Engineer II

Overview

Instacart’s Customer Quality team ensures our Caper by Instacart hardware delivers reliable, delightful experiences at scale. We partner across Customer Success, Operations, R&D, Suppliers, Manufacturing, and Product Management to rapidly resolve market issues, harden our designs, and raise the bar for quality and customer satisfaction.

We’re looking for a Sr. Hardware Field Quality Engineer (E&E) to lead field quality for our electronics and electrical systems across deployed carts and kiosks. You will manage market-escape containment, drive root-cause analysis, and implement durable corrective and preventive actions that reduce cost of poor quality (COPQ) while boosting customer trust. This role is remote-friendly in the U.S., with a strong preference for Eastern Time and proximity to Cincinnati, OH or New York, NY for field and partner site visits.

About the Job

• Lead end-to-end triage of field quality issues for electronic and electrical subsystems (e.g., PCBAs, power, batteries, sensors, displays), from detection and containment to verified long-term corrective actions.
• Manage and mentor a small team of field and quality engineers, setting clear KPIs (e.g., DPPM, RMA rate, MTTR) and driving accountability across cross-functional stakeholders.
• Own the 8D/5-Why/FMEA process to identify true root causes, align on interim and permanent fixes, and prevent recurrence across the fleet and supply chain.
• Partner with R&D, contract manufacturers, and suppliers to validate fixes (design, process, firmware) via DOE, bench validation, and on-device field trials; ensure changes are fully qualified and documented in PLM.
• Build and maintain a FRACAS and quality dashboard that turns data into action; quantify COPQ drivers and prioritize the highest-impact remediation work.
• Establish robust incoming, in-process, and end-of-line quality controls for E&E components; influence test coverage, screening, and reliability guardrails for new and sustaining builds.
• Serve as the visible point of contact for escalations, communicating status and risk with clarity to customers and executives while coordinating rapid on-the-ground response.
• Support regulatory, safety, and EMC/EMI compliance considerations in field fixes and product changes in collaboration with compliance and engineering partners.
• Travel to customer sites, supplier factories, and labs to accelerate hands-on failure analysis and corrective action validation as needed.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in hardware quality, field quality, or reliability engineering focused on electronics/electrical systems for deployed products.
• 3+ years of experience leading engineers or technicians, including setting goals and developing talent.
• Proven ownership of 8D, 5-Why, FMEA, CAPA, and FRACAS processes with measurable improvements in DPPM/RMA/MTTR or similar KPIs.
• Hands-on debug skills using oscilloscopes, multimeters, and logic analyzers; ability to read schematics and perform board-level triage.
• Experience driving fixes across design, firmware, process, and test with contract manufacturers and suppliers.
• Working knowledge of EMC/EMI, electrical safety, and regulatory considerations for commercial electronics.
• Proficiency with PLM and issue-tracking tools (e.g., Arena/Agile, Jira) and strong data analysis skills using Excel or SQL.
• Ability to travel to customer and supplier sites as business needs dictate.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills and comfort operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
• Professional working proficiency in Mandarin.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with connected retail/IoT hardware, kiosks, or robotics deployed at 1,000+ unit scale.
• Depth in power systems and battery technologies (charging, protection, BMS, thermal management).
• Background in reliability engineering (HALT/HASS, Weibull analysis, warranty analytics) and test automation.
• Six Sigma Green/Black Belt and/or ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE).
• Experience establishing or maturing FRACAS and quality dashboards for executive and field visibility.
• Firmware/hardware interface debugging (e.g., I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, JTAG) and basic scripting (Python) for data or test tooling.
• Proximity to Cincinnati, OH or New York, NY and familiarity with Eastern Time operations.

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