Senior HITL Test Engineer

Astranis•San Francisco, CA

42d•$150,000 - $215,000•Onsite

About The Position

Astranis is seeking a highly skilled and motivated HITL Test Engineer to join their rapidly-growing team. In this role, the engineer will be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testbeds that serve as the primary proving ground for every satellite they build and fly. The engineer will collaborate with nearly every engineering team — Flight Software, Guidance Navigation & Control, Avionics, Power, Payload, and Mission Ops — to ensure their testbeds are flight-representative, reliable, and always ready to support testing. If it runs on a satellite, it gets proven on HITL first.

Requirements

Bachelors degree in EE, AE, CS (or equivalent background knowledge)
2-5+ years of experience in hardware integration, systems bring-up, or test engineering
Comfort working across hardware and software, from rack assembly to debugging Python tracebacks
Experience with embedded systems, EGSE, or laboratory hardware like logic analyzers and oscilloscopes
2+ years of experience with Python (or equivalent high-level scripting language) for test automation
1+ years of experience with Linux and shell command line tools
1+ years of experience with version control systems (git or equivalent)
Experience reading schematics and debugging circuits that interface with embedded software
Strong debugging instincts and a methodical approach to documenting novel failures
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
A passion for building things, including working in a fast-paced environment and hands-on development

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with flight software architectures, telemetry systems, or simulation frameworks
Prior experience with networked lab infrastructure, Kubernetes, or Linux system administration

Responsibilities

Own the full lifecycle of flatsat and HITL testbed builds, from initial design and BOM development through hardware procurement and software bring-up
Scope and design harnessing needs, coordinating with manufacturing to produce custom harnesses for flight-like hardware
Serve on a rotating on-call point of contact for testbed health, triaging anomalies and managing access for other engineers
Diagnose and resolve hardware and software failures on the testbed, spanning firmware interfaces, flight software, and physical components
Drive testbed architecture decisions, including hardware allocation tradeoffs and risk mitigation for testbed contention
Expand simulation capabilities as new satellite blocks come online, integrating motor emulators and deployment simulators
Develop tooling to improve testbed observability, monitoring, and automated operations
Assist in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring additional teammates to our rapidly-growing team