Principal Test Architect – Industrial Automation & SCADA

AVEVA•Lake Forest, CA

8d•$130,500 - $217,700•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Product Test Engineer to join our Monitoring and Control Business within the Operations BU of AVEVA. The ideal candidate will be responsible for owning the test strategy, planning, and execution for our Enterprise SCADA product stack — spanning visualization, alarm subsystem, historization, and device integration. This role involves designing and executing scalability, performance, and reliability tests for real-time industrial automation products, validating new features, and reproducing and diagnosing customer-reported issues in close collaboration with development teams. The position requires deep expertise in hands-on testing of real-time industrial automation software, with strong grounding in SCADA architectures, industrial communication protocols, and field-level devices such as PLCs and IoT gateways.

Requirements

12+ years of hands-on product test experience with real-time industrial automation products.
Deep expertise in testing SCADA software stacks — Visualization, Alarm Subsystem, Historization, and Device Integration.
Proven track record designing and executing scalability, performance, and reliability tests for real-time systems.
Working knowledge of PLCs and IoT-based devices and technologies, including bring-up, configuration, and validation against them.
Hands-on familiarity with industrial automation protocols: MQTT (Sparkplug/JSON), OPC UA, ABCIP, S7-SiDirect, OMRON, and CODESYS.
Strong troubleshooting and root-cause analysis skills on Windows-based applications, with the ability to partner with developers on complex defects.
Excellent problem-solving skills with a proactive approach to reproducing and isolating hard-to-catch issues.
Strong communication skills and ability to work in a team-oriented environment.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Python for scripting and test automation.
Experience applying AI tools and technologies to testing and test automation — test generation, log/triage analysis, and coverage insights.
Prior experience working on AVEVA System Platform products (or equivalent enterprise SCADA/HMI platforms).
Exposure to Linux environments and containerized deployments.
Familiarity with performance profiling, memory analysis, and network trace analysis techniques.
Ability to work in a fast-paced and collaborative environment with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end test strategy and execution for the SCADA product stack, including Visualization, Alarm Subsystem, Historization, and Device Integration.
Design, plan, and execute scalability, performance, load, and endurance tests for real-time industrial automation products.
Validate new features across the driver framework and platform components; reproduce, isolate, and triage customer-reported issues from deployed versions.
Design and execute end-to-end validation against industrial communication protocols, including: OPC UA, MQTT (Sparkplug and JSON-based), Allen Bradley CIP (ABCIP), Siemens S7 / S7-SiDirect, OMRON, CODESYS.
Set up and validate against real hardware — PLCs, IoT devices, and gateways — as well as simulators and emulators representative of customer deployments.
Build and evolve automated test frameworks; contribute Python-based scripting for test automation, test data generation, and log analysis.
Apply AI tools and technologies to test authoring, execution triage, failure analysis, and coverage optimization.
Utilize debugging and diagnostic tools such as Wireshark, Debug Diag, and Perfmon to isolate performance and reliability issues.
Collaborate with geographically distributed teams and work across multiple stakeholders including Technical Support, End Customers, and Internal Engineering Teams.
Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior test engineers and drive quality culture and test discipline across the program.