Nextracker - Senior Manager - Product Reliability

About the Role:

Nextpower is seeking a dynamic Senior Manager Product Reliability to establish and scale our reliability engineering function in India. This leadership role will directly influence product strategy, design quality, and lifecycle performance for our global portfolio of clean-energy solutions.

You will build and lead a high-performing reliability team, partner with cross-functional leaders across Engineering, Design, Quality, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain, and drive a data-driven culture of product robustness and risk mitigation. The role demands strategic thinking, strong technical depth, and the ability to translate reliability insights into business impact.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Reliability Strategy & Risk Governance:

- Build Indias Product Reliability Program from ground up.

- Drive risk identification and mitigation during New Product Development (NPD) and Engineering Change processes.

- Lead DFMEA, risk assessments, and first-principlesbased analyses for solar tracker systems and components.

- Present reliability risks, trends, and readiness to leadership, providing clear decision-making inputs.

2. Reliability Testing Leadership:

- Oversee creation of reliability test plans for all India-developed or India-managed products.

- Govern long-duration and accelerated life tests (HALT, HASS, fatigue, corrosion, vibration, etc.) at component and system level.

- Ensure high-quality test execution by collaborating with internal labs, outdoor solar test fields, and external testing partners.

3. Test Data Ownership & Reporting:

- Own all durability and reliability test results for internal and customer-facing reporting.

- Standardize reliability reporting formats that support customer confidence, certifications, and product launches.

4. Failure Analysis & Continuous Improvement

- Drive end-to-end Failure Analysis (FA) and root cause closure with cross-functional teams and suppliers.

- Establish FA methodologies using internal and external labs; define test conditions to recreate field failures.

- Support Quality in implementing Corrective Action & Preventive Action (CAPA) through FRACAS or similar systems.

5. Collaboration & Stakeholder Management:

- Partner with Design, Mechanical, Electrical, and Manufacturing teams to embed reliability into early development.

- Work with suppliers to define reliability requirements and review their qualification test reports.

- Collaborate with global teams to align reliability benchmarks and global test standards.

6. Reliability Modeling & Data Analytics:

- Implement Reliability Growth Models (Duane, Crow-AMSAA) to track product maturity through iterative testing.

- Use statistical tools (Weibull, ReliaSoft, JMP) to derive insights, predict reliability performance, and support field deployment decisions.

Technical Expertise Required:

- Strong command over DfR (Design for Reliability) principles including derating, material selection, redundancy and tolerance analysis.

- Deep experience with fatigue, wear, corrosion, vibration, load-bearing mechanical components and electromechanical assemblies.

- Hands-on exposure to environmental chambers, strain gauges, dynamometers, torque sensors, thermal cycling and data acquisition systems.

- Understanding of IEC/ASTM/ISO/ANSI environmental, corrosion, and mechanical testing standards.