Hardware Test Engineer

Rune•Mountain View, CA

5d•$105,000 - $150,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Hardware Test Engineer executes reliability, validation, and verification testing across the RELIC’s mechanical, electrical, and compute systems. The role translates design groups’ failure-mode findings into test plans, builds test fixtures and instrumentation, and reports results to the engineers responsible for the designs. It is a full-time, in-office position in Mountain View, five days per week, with travel up to 20%.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or Reliability Engineering, or equivalent industry experience.
4 to 7 years of experience in hardware test and/or product validation engineering on energy storage, power electronics, grid-tied equipment, or electromechanical hardware.
Hands-on experience building test fixtures, harnesses, instrumentation, and data acquisition systems, and bringing units up on a bench for stress testing and measurement.
Direct experience executing environmental and reliability stress testing, including HALT, HASS, accelerated life, thermal cycling, vibration, and humidity, against ASTM standards.
Proficiency with test automation and data analysis in Python or LabVIEW.
Experience with bench instrumentation, including oscilloscopes, data acquisition systems, multimeters, and loads.
Experience with failure analysis and root-cause methods, and contributing failure-mode evidence to DFMEA and design reviews.
Working knowledge of energy storage and power electronics failure mechanisms, including cells and battery systems, inverters and converters, thermal management, and outdoor enclosures.
Comfort working on the floor alongside assembly technicians and in the field alongside installation crews.
Excellent communication skills and ability to turn test data into recommendations design engineers will act on.

Responsibilities

Translate DFMEA findings and verification requirements from design groups, NPI, and the production floor into test plans, sample sizes, stress levels, and acceptance criteria.
Design and build test fixtures, harnesses, instrumentation, and data acquisition systems for mechanical, electrical, and compute testing.
Develop test procedures and automation scripts in Python or LabVIEW for instrument control, test sequencing, and repeatable per-unit data capture.
Specify required chambers, loads, sensors, and bench equipment, and maintain their calibration, documentation, and availability.
Execute reliability testing, including HALT, HASS, accelerated life, thermal cycling, vibration, humidity, shock, and burn-in, on units and subassemblies.
Run functional verification and validation of battery and power electronics, enclosure, thermal system, and interfaces on EVT, DVT, and PVT builds.
Execute compute and GPU reliability testing with the GPU infrastructure engineer, including burn-in, thermal throttling, and telemetry-based failure detection.
Collect and analyze test data using statistical methods, Weibull and life-data analysis, and physics-of-failure reasoning.
Perform failure analysis and teardown on test and production failures, identifying root causes across mechanical, electrical, and firmware boundaries.
Produce test reports with data, failure evidence, and specific design or process recommendations for the responsible engineering group.
Run and maintain test labs and/or external test house partnerships, including equipment, fixtures, calibration records, and per-unit test history.
Support field failure investigations and the closed-loop corrective-action process from failure through analysis to corrective-action implementation.