Lead Test Engineer

American Turbines•San Francisco, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Lead Test Engineer will own the ground on which every design claim gets proven or killed: the test stand. You will design, build, and run the facilities that take our first engine from cold spin to full power, and the rig program that retires combustor and controls risk in parallel. When the machine runs for the first time, you will be the one at the console. You will own the test infrastructure end to end: stand structure and mounts, fuel gas train, starting and loading systems, cooling, fire and overspeed protection, and the instrumentation that tells us what the machine is actually doing. Thermocouples, pressure transducers, accelerometers, speed probes, emissions measurement, and the DAQ and control room that turn them into decisions. You will write the test procedures, run the hazard reviews, define abort limits, and enforce them when it's tempting not to. Then you will run tests, fast. Turn the stand around between builds in hours, not weeks. Reduce the data the same day, put it next to the predictions, and tell the design team where reality disagrees with the model. Test rate is the company's iteration speed; you own the denominator.

Requirements

Experience testing high-energy machinery (gas turbines, rocket engines, turbochargers, compressors, or comparable rotating or combustion hardware).
Experience building or significantly modifying a test stand.
Experience running hot hardware where mistakes can cause destruction or injury.
Strong instrumentation and DAQ fundamentals (sensor selection and placement, signal conditioning, calibration, appropriate sampling rates).
Comfortable with data reduction and scripting (Python or similar).
Ability to produce answers from test data, not just spreadsheets.
Calmness at the console.
Discipline about procedures.
Treating turnaround time as a design variable.
Understanding the difference between a test that produces data and a test that produces a decision.
Judgment to stop a test when necessary.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with gas fuel systems.
Familiarity with high-pressure plumbing.
Familiarity with test safety practices.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and run test facilities for engines.
Manage the test rig program for combustor and controls risk.
Operate the test console during initial engine runs.
Own test infrastructure including stand structure, fuel gas train, starting and loading systems, cooling, fire and overspeed protection.
Manage instrumentation such as thermocouples, pressure transducers, accelerometers, speed probes, and emissions measurement.
Oversee DAQ and control room operations.
Write test procedures.
Conduct hazard reviews.
Define and enforce abort limits.
Run tests quickly and efficiently, aiming for turnaround times of hours.
Reduce test data on the same day it is collected.
Compare test results to predictions and communicate discrepancies to the design team.
Improve test rate to increase company iteration speed.