Sr. Failure Analysis Engineer

Amazon Lab126 is an inventive research and development company that designs and engineers high-profile consumer electronics. Lab126 began in 2004 as a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., originally creating the best-selling Kindle family of products. Since then, we have produced groundbreaking devices like Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo. What will you help us create? Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
The China Product Integrity (CPI) Failure Analysis lab safeguards the material and chemical integrity of Amazon devices — from polymers, adhesives, and coatings to metals, glass, and surface treatments. We investigate how materials interact with real-world environments (sweat, sebum, cosmetics, humidity, temperature, and mechanical stress) and turn those findings into design and manufacturing improvements.


Key job responsibilities
As a Senior Failure Analysis Engineer in the CPI lab, you will be the domain expert for chemistry- and materials-related failure analysis, with a strong ability to identify root causes, develop effective solutions, and communicate findings to cross-functional teams. Your contributions will directly impact product quality, reliability, and timelines. Your responsibilities will include:
• Conducting rapid root cause analysis for materials- and chemistry-related issues arising from testing, manufacturing, and field operations — including environmental stress cracking (ESC), corrosion, adhesive/coating delamination, contamination, discoloration, and chemical compatibility failures
• Designing and executing failure analysis plans at the material, component, and device levels — from analysis strategy through hands-on operation of analytical instruments
• Performing chemical and surface characterization using GC-MS, FTIR, Raman, XPS/AES, SEM/EDS, XRF, thermal analysis (TGA/DSC/TMA/DMA), CT X-ray, and related techniques, and interpreting spectra/data to failure mechanisms
• Investigating polymer degradation, curing/crosslinking state, plasticizer and additive migration, residue and contamination sources, and chemical attack from consumer-use substances (sebum, sweat, sunscreen, cleaning agents)
• Advising design teams on material selection, adhesive and coating systems, and chemical compatibility during NPI; feeding recurring failure mechanisms back into design SOPs and manufacturing controls
• Writing clear, evidence-based failure analysis reports that separate confirmed findings from hypotheses, and presenting conclusions to multifunctional and executive audiences
• Driving implementation of corrective actions with CM/EMS partners to improve product quality and meet reliability specifications and product timelines
• Serving as the technical go-to person for chemistry questions in the local FA team, and developing new analytical methods, standards, and more efficient workflows


About the team
The China Product Integrity (CPI) Failure Analysis lab safeguards the material and chemical integrity of Amazon devices — from polymers, adhesives, and coatings to metals, glass, and surface treatments. We investigate how materials interact with real-world environments (sweat, sebum, cosmetics, humidity, temperature, and mechanical stress) and turn those findings into design and manufacturing improvements.

Basic Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, material science, physics or equivalent, or Bachelor's degree
- 7+ years of root cause analysis and process design experience
- Experience in a consumer electronics lab environment
- Experience in developing functional specifications, design verification plans and functional test procedures
- Solid knowledge of organic and polymeric materials — plastics, rubbers, adhesives, coatings — as well as glass and metals, including their degradation and failure mechanisms (ESC, hydrolysis, oxidation, corrosion, UV aging)

Preferred Qualifications

- Master's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, material science, physics or equivalent, or PhD
- 7+ years of consumer electronics experience
- Experience demonstrating problem solving and root cause analysis
- Experience collaborating and influencing multiple teams across multiple organizations
- Experience in program, project, product management, or leading a product implementation process
- Deep expertise in analytical chemistry of organic and polymeric materials: spectra interpretation (FTIR/GC-MS/Raman/NMR), chromatography method development, and surface analysis (XPS, ToF-SIMS, AES)
- Experience with adhesive/coating formulation, UV-curable resins and degree-of-cure characterization, or chemical compatibility studies of consumer products

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