Entry Level- Test Engineer (Onsite- Aberdeen Maryland)

Fairwinds Technologies, L•Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD

5d•$75,000 - $85,000•Onsite

About The Position

Fairwinds Technologies is seeking curious, methodical, and hands-on early-career engineers to verify the performance of advanced communications, RF, embedded-computing, and mixed-signal products. This role supports either the xG or Mixed Signal product development team, or technical-services contracts. The engineer will collaborate with experienced personnel to plan tests, configure equipment, collect evidence, analyze results, troubleshoot failures, and improve repeatability. Assignments may involve internal product development and customer-funded research, integration, qualification, demonstration, acceptance, and field-support activities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering Technology, or a closely related technical field, completed or expected before start date.
Coursework, laboratory, internship, capstone, research, maker-space, or personal-project experience involving test, measurement, troubleshooting, integration, data analysis, or technical documentation.
Foundational understanding of the engineering test lifecycle, including objectives, configurations, procedures, measurement, repeatability, acceptance criteria, and reporting.
Basic experience using laboratory instruments, software tools, command-line utilities, or data-analysis applications.
Ability to follow controlled procedures while recognizing unexpected results, asking good questions, and documenting observations accurately.
Ability to use structured problem solving, organize test evidence, communicate assumptions, and explain results clearly.
Ability to collaborate in a multidisciplinary engineering environment and satisfy customer, site-access, export-control, and security requirements.
Must be eligible to work in the US.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience testing radios, networks, electronics, embedded systems, RF components, software, mechanical hardware, or integrated prototypes.
Exposure to Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, Bash, Linux, Git, instrument-control interfaces, automated test frameworks, or continuous integration.
Familiarity with RF or electronic test equipment, packet analysis, traffic generation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, or environmental test equipment.
Coursework or project experience in wireless communications, RF systems, digital signal processing, 5G or LTE, non-terrestrial networks, software-defined radio, satellite communications, computer networks, or embedded systems.
Awareness of requirements traceability, verification matrices, regression testing, configuration management, calibration, uncertainty, statistical analysis, or quality systems.
Experience preparing technical plots, concise findings, test reports, troubleshooting logs, or customer-facing engineering documentation.

Responsibilities

Translate product, system, interface, and customer requirements into test objectives, methods, procedures, data needs, and acceptance criteria.
Develop and maintain test plans, test cases, procedures, checklists, test configurations, data sheets, traceability records, and formal test reports.
Configure and operate laboratory equipment, radios, network devices, embedded systems, channel emulators, RF components, computers, and automated test environments.
Execute functional, performance, interoperability, regression, environmental-support, reliability, and acceptance testing.
Collect, organize, visualize, and analyze test data for various metrics.
Use oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, network analyzers, power meters, logic analyzers, packet-capture tools, and comparable instruments.
Create scripts (Python, MATLAB, Bash, etc.) to automate equipment control, configuration checks, data collection, analysis, plotting, and report inputs.
Document test anomalies, reproduce failures, isolate contributing conditions, support root-cause investigations, and verify corrective actions.
Coordinate test readiness, equipment availability, calibration status, software and firmware baselines, test articles, interfaces, safety controls, and configuration records.
Participate in laboratory and field testing, customer demonstrations, design reviews, test-readiness reviews, and technical-service deliverables.