Software Quality Assurance Test Engineer

Aurelius Systems•San Francisco, CA

8h•Onsite

About The Position

Aurelius Systems is a VC-backed defense tech startup focused on developing autonomous, edge-deployed directed energy systems for counter-unmanned aerial systems (counter-UAS). The company is building laser weapons to neutralize drones and aims to be the first to offer a cost-effective, reliable, and robust laser weapon system. They operate with a philosophy of "unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable," emphasizing direct action and tangible results. Aurelius Systems has a lab in San Francisco, a manufacturing hub in Detroit, and conducts weekly field tests on a private 400-acre range. The Software QA Test Engineer will be crucial in ensuring the software quality for their Archimedes system, working closely with the Principal Robotics SWE on CI/CD, regression infrastructure, and the code deployment pipeline to the field. Test engineering is considered a first-class function within the company, with the role focused on building test infrastructure for robotics system performance and validation rather than acting as a gatekeeper.

Requirements

3+ years building test infrastructure for robotics, hardware, or safety-critical software.
Strong Python and C++ test skills.
Experience building CI/CD pipelines from scratch and operating them in production.
Hardware-in-the-loop or rig-based testing experience.
Comfortable working on real hardware, not just simulators.
Experience in QA or test infrastructure roles within defense, robotics, automotive autonomy, automation tooling, or environments with HIL test rigs.
Belief that test is a first-class engineering discipline, not a stage gate.
Proven experience building and utilizing test infrastructure.
Experience debugging on real hardware.

Nice To Haves

ROS2 testing experience.
Hardware-in-the-loop rig design.
Performance and stress testing on real-time systems.
Defense or safety-critical software release experience.

Responsibilities

Own test infrastructure across unit, integration, end-to-end, and hardware-in-the-loop testing.
Manage CI/CD pipelines, build health, and release gates.
Develop and maintain regression suites and automated test coverage across the robotics stack.
Perform bug triage and ensure reproducibility, owning issues until resolution.
Ensure release cleanliness for fielded software.
Conduct lab time on real hardware, not just remote test management.