Test Automation Infrastructure Lead

York Spaces Systems•Austin, TX

About The Position

We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic engineer to lead the Test Automation Infrastructure team in the Simulation, Integration and Test Department with a passion for launching hardware into space and a desire to revolutionize the space industry. Our ideal candidate thrives in a highly collaborative environment and enjoys finding ways to innovate and make processes more efficient. This role owns the software products and infrastructure that powers York's spacecraft integration and test campaigns. They are widely used across engineering to drive all phases of test to get spacecraft out the door. In this role you will coordinate closely with spacecraft production, simulation, flight software, ground software, and mission operations teams to understand their needs, translate them into product roadmaps, and deliver the product that is required. This is primarily a management role, but it is not a hands-off one. You should expect to stay in the codebase, contribute directly on focused work, support production, and review your engineers' code with real technical judgment. You will follow your products from development to deployment.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
5+ years of professional software development experience
Demonstrated proficiency in both Python and C++
Demonstrated proficiency with bash/shell scripting
Experience leading others in software development, whether as a manager, technical lead, or both
Experience designing, building, deploying and operating software applications in a production environment
Strong communication skills and the ability to set priorities across multiple concurrent products and stakeholders
Experience with writing test documentation, such as test plans, procedures, reports, and defect records
Capable of managing multiple tasks while delivering according to program milestones and release commitments

Nice To Haves

Experience with integrating C/C++ into python - preferred experience with CPython or SWIG
Experience with optimizing Python applications and scripts for memory usage in memory constrained environments
Experience with interpreting raw data from bytes into human readable formats given an interface database
Experience building test automation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), or simulation infrastructure for spacecraft, aircraft, or other complex embedded hardware systems
Direct people-management experience, including performance management and career development
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code
Familiarity with spacecraft integration and test workflows, environmental testing, or mission operations
Experience in modeling, analysis and validation of satellite subsystems
Experience working with real-time systems, instrumentation, or physical spacecraft
Experience scaling an engineering team
Experience with frontend automation software such as Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, etc.
Experience with REST APIs, message-based interfaces, and network protocols
Experience with Software in the loop test systems
Experience with Hardware in the loop test systems
Experience in testing and validation of satellite subsystems
Experience with test management, requirements management, and defect-tracking tools
Experience with UI/UX testing

Responsibilities

Manage a team of 5-7 engineers with strong leadership skills, including tasking, technical direction, career growth, and performance
Set priorities across multiple different products, working through a designated engineering lead for each, and grow that structure as the group scales
Stay hands-on, contributing code on focused work and reviewing your engineers' work directly
Lead design, development, delivery, maintenance, and support of multiple products
Own product roadmaps and release cadence across multiple platforms, and align them with internal customer roadmaps
Communicate status, risks, and trade-offs clearly to SIT leadership and internal stakeholders
Collaborate with internal and external teams that depend on stability of your products daily
Design trainings for test infrastructure for specific stakeholders
Identify opportunities to improve test effectiveness, execution efficiency, reliability, observability, and automation coverage
Perform troubleshooting and debugging of SIT tests and CI/CD infrastructure in which your test frameworks are used
Maintain and develop a python framework used to communicate with embedded flight software
Interact with stakeholders and customers to gather feedback and requirements for feature requests and bugfixes
Manage and monitor releases and ensure products are stable for deployments