Staff Electrical Test Development Engineer - NPI

Mainspring Energy•Menlo Park, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Mainspring Energy manufactures and delivers fuel-flexible, low-emissions local power solutions that rapidly add new capacity and deliver reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power. The company began commercial shipments of its Mainspring Linear Generators in 2020 and today has hundreds of megawatts in advanced development and field operations for leading Fortune 500 companies, data centers, and utilities. Mainspring also partners with global energy leaders including AEP, NextEra Energy Resources, Schneider Electric, and more. The core values that ground our work, guide our decisions, and connect us together: Pragmatic Optimism, Excellence without Ego, Proactive Collaboration. Job Overview: Are you a hardware-software hybrid who thrives on designing complex, automated testing architectures? Do you prefer the challenge of driving rigorous manufacturing test strategies and leading root-cause analysis on complex yield issues over routine, single-domain design tasks? Mainspring Energy is looking for a highly autonomous, intellectually curious Senior Test Development Engineer to join our core Electrical Engineering organization. Unlike traditional test engineering roles confined to running basic scripts or simple end-of-line checks, this is a high-impact engineering position where you will design sophisticated electro-mechanical test fixtures and lead complex technical escalations with our top-tier contract manufacturers. Working alongside a specialized team of expert test engineers, you will have the execution autonomy to establish rigorous test coverage standards, build custom test hardware from the ground up, and directly elevate the reliability of our revolutionary power generation fleet.

Requirements

8+ years of experience with a Bachelor's degree, or 4+ years of experience with a Master's degree, in Electrical Engineering or a related field
Hands-on experience working as an electrical engineer or new product introduction (NPI) engineer developing and realizing electrical testers for manufacturing. You’re able to talk in detail about what, why, and how a tester design works
A strong understanding of I/O types, analog, digital, communication buses
Advanced experience with AOI, flying probe, and ICT testing methods
Experience developing test system documentation, including test requirements, schematics, coverage analysis, etc
Proven competency in a physical hardware lab environment setting up test benches, instrumenting hardware under test, and maintaining clean, safe laboratory testing practices
Software programming and development skills for automating electrical testers
A “collaborate-first” mindset and have successfully communicated across a range of teams and personalities

Nice To Haves

Prior experience implementing mass interconnect solutions, bed of nails fixtures, and electro-mechanical fixtures
Familiarity with design validation testing, including developing test plans and executing testing
Proficiency in test automation programming and scripting languages (e.g. LabView, LabWindows, TestStand and/or Python)

Responsibilities

Establish Mainspring’s overall test strategy for circuit boards and electrical assemblies
Develop test requirements and translate them into a variety of testers, from manual screening tests to fully automated testers
Design and integrate complex hardware test fixtures, including mass interconnect solutions and swappable bed-of-nails systems
Determine which projects to insource and which to outsource. For outsourced projects, you will manage external partners that are developing and building testers
Deploy test systems at our manufacturing partners’ facilities to capture quality issues earlier in the build process
Drive test coverage improvements and manage technical escalations with contract manufacturers (e.g., optimizing Flying Probe, ICT, and AOI test coverage)
Collaborate with product design engineers to improve their designs for manufacturability (DFM), testability (DFT), and cost reduction
Validate test systems and production yields using statistical data analysis tools (e.g., GR&R, Cpk, SPC)