Sr. Electrical Test Engineer
About The Position
The Senior Electrical Test Engineer leads electrical test strategy and execution across vehicle and subsystem programs. This role develops test plans, builds automated test equipment, and partners across engineering and manufacturing to ensure electrical designs are validated before release and deployment. It is part of a small, versatile Electrical Test team that handles electrical validation, test automation, and some in-house mechanical work for test fixtures. The position is a backfill and is being hired at the Senior to Staff level. The successful candidate works semi-autonomously in an R&D environment and brings deep hands-on hardware validation and test automation capability. They should have a clear area of mastery in either board-level PCBA validation paired with Python automation or high-power/power-systems validation, along with a holistic, systems-level perspective. The role is permanent, fully onsite in Austin, Texas.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
- 5–10+ years of experience in electrical test engineering or hardware validation; additional experience may be considered for Staff-level candidates.
- Engineering-level board-debug ability, including reading schematics and datasheets and independently root-causing hardware failures.
- Ability to write test automation software, primarily in Python.
- Experience designing and building flexible bench-top automated test setups, rather than single-purpose production ATE.
- R&D background supporting high-mix hardware validation, ideally having personally built and owned test systems.
- Strong troubleshooting skills across analog, digital, power, and mixed-signal systems.
- A demonstrated area of mastery in either board-level PCBA validation paired with Python automation or high-voltage/high-power systems validation.
- Candidates should not have ATE experience limited to a single dedicated production test machine used in high-volume consumer electronics manufacturing.
- Candidates should not be chip-level, chip-fabrication, or chip-bring-up specialists; EMI/EMC-only specialists; or pure software/web QA engineers without hardware-in-the-loop experience.
Nice To Haves
- Master's degree.
- Experience in automotive, especially EV, marine, robotics, defense, or ruggedized platforms.
- High-voltage/high-power systems experience (100V+ DC) as an alternate strength path to board debug plus automation.
- Personal coding projects or demonstrated interest in electronics/programming outside work.
- Mechanical hobbyist background, such as personally repairing a vehicle.
- Systems engineering or requirements-writing background.
- Experience testing highly configurable or high-variant products.
- Background at an EV company, marine/boat company, or home power/battery systems company.
- Active personal coding projects or a GitHub presence.
Responsibilities
- Develop and own comprehensive test plans aligned with the engineering design process, including requirements, design, verification, validation, and release.
- Lead electrical verification at board, subsystem, and system levels, including functional, environmental, regression, reliability, and stress testing.
- Drive root cause analysis for electrical failures and implement corrective validation strategies.
- Design, build, and deploy automated test equipment for PCBAs, harnesses, power systems, and integrated assemblies, using flexible, interchangeable bench-top equipment rather than single-purpose production test machines.
- Develop automated test scripts and frameworks, primarily in Python.
- Specify and integrate laboratory instrumentation, including oscilloscopes, DAQs, power supplies, and environmental chambers.
- Partner with electrical, mechanical, firmware, systems, and manufacturing engineers to ensure designs are testable and validated early, and participate in design reviews.
- Partner with manufacturing and contract manufacturing partners to validate hardware after build and transition engineering tests into production test processes.
- Support field diagnostics, including building diagnostic kits used by technicians in the field.
- Mentor junior engineers and technicians in structured test development and debugging.
Benefits
- Comprehensive medical insurance; the employer pays 100% of employee premiums and 80% of dependent premiums.
- Dental and vision insurance; the employer pays 100% of the basic-plan employee premium and 80% of dependent premiums.
- Generous paid time off and holidays.
- Paid maternity and paternity leave.
- Competitive salary with opportunities for performance-based bonuses.
- 401(k) plan with company match.
- Stock options.
- Basic life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage.
- Discounted pet insurance options, including a 24/7 telehealth helpline.
- Free lunch benefit and unlimited free drinks and snacks in the office.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
